Life of Isaiah V. Williamson

ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

LIFE OF
ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

BY

JOHN WANAMAKER

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1928

COPYRIGHT, 1938, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FOREWORD

From his earliest days John Wanamaker
was a voluminous writer. His first manu-
scripts were the lessons prepared for Bethany
Sunday School in 1858, and he continued to
write on many subjects to the very end. His
pioneer work transformed the writing of ad-
vertisements. When he reached middle life
he began to write on municipal, state, and
national political issues. The record of his
participation in the Cabinet of Benjamin
Harrison was preserved in the annual reports
of the Postmaster General to the President.
Many of his notable speeches in Pennsylvania
political campaigns were published in book
form by a league of Philadelphia business
men. In his later years he wrote several thou-
sand daily Store editorials. Throughout his
long career he carefully prepared, and gen-
erally wrote in long-hand, his speeches before
they were delivered. And they were speeches
on all sorts of subjects.

But he did not write books. His life was
a dailtf outpouring. It was not strange, then,

vi

FOREWORD

that his writings should be of the moment for
the moment. No man of his time had greater
vision, and saw more clearly the future. But
he lived day by day.

The character of John Wanamaker,
coupled with the tremendous demands made
upon his time each day, makes all the more
remarkable the little biographical sketch of
a friend which we are publishing five years
after John Wanamaker's death, twenty years
after the sketch was written, and nearly forty
years after the death of its subject.

Isaiah V. Williamson was of the genera-
tion preceding John Wanamaker. But he
honored the younger man with his friendship
and trust, and the younger man admired him
and saw the great soul of Williamson when
others went no farther than to be amused
about and criticize the old philanthropist's
habits of economy. So much that was legen-
dary grew up around the name of Isaiah V.
Williamson that John Wanamaker deter-
mined to write the life of his friend. It was
a big undertaking for a busy merchant. But
he went about it with his usual thoroughness
and patient attention to detail. Gradually the

FOREWORD

Vll

materials for a life of Williamson were
gathered; and then the life was written. In
its original form it was a considerably larger
manuscript. John Wanamaker cut it down;
and parts of it he recast. Then he put it aside.
It was found among his papers — the only
book-length manuscript that he had written.

It is not for this reason, however, that it is
being published. We feel that the life of
Isaiah V. Williamson should be known to this
generation. The little book is a message to
young men, written by one man who had
achieved success, about another man who had
achieved success before he did. But neither
the subject of the biography, nor its author,
had any thought for success in the worldly
meaning of that word. Nor did they measure
their life work by the money they had accu-
mulated and the position they had won among
their fellows by reason of the power that
money gave them.

Honest living, honest thinking, and a pas-
sion for service are the characteristics of
Isaiah V. Williamson brought forth in this
little book. The biographer's enthusiasm for
and keen sympathy with the man about whom

viii

FOREWORD

he writes could only have been possible
through sharing his subject's ideals. There is
inspiration in this book for those who want
the ideals of Isaiah V. Williamson and John
Wanamaker to be theirs.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Background i

II. The Preparation 15

III. Early Years in Philadelphia 29

IV. Seeing the World 48

V. At the Cross-Roads 55

VI. Philanthropy His Real Business 65

VII. Development of the Williamson School

Idea 93

VIII. Founding the Williamson School 118

IX. The Little Man of Large Soul 136

ILLUSTRATIONS

Isaiah V. Williamson frontispiece

FACING PAGE

The Old Homestead of Mahon and Charity
Williamson 4

Meeting House, Hicksite Friends, Fallsing-
ton, Penna 16

The Orthodox Meeting House and School
Building in the Rear 16

The Gillingham Store, Fallsington, Penna. . 22

Administration Building and Campus 126

Industrial Buildings 130

Apprentices' Dormitories 130

Apprentices at Inspection 134

A Class of Apprentices 134

LIFE OF
ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

i

THE BACKGROUND

IENSALEM TOWNSHIP is where
we begin. You never heard of it? That
is not to be wondered at, for there was
nothing to star it on the map until a
few years ago. Even now, though it
lies along the Delaware River between Phila-
delphia and Trenton, it is thought of as an
out-of-the-way farming region, in old Bucks
County, Pennsylvania, celebrated for old-
fashioned, straightforward, well-living farm-
ers, chiefly of Quaker ancestors, who, accord-
ing to tradition, remain county-contained and
still vote for Andrew Jackson at the quad-
rennial Presidential elections.

Bensalem is not a railroad center. The
trains simply hurry by on their way to and
from New York. Neshaminy Creek, which
forms its northern boundary, is not deep

2 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

enough to make it a shipping point. Mills,
factories, and mines, which give importance
to a region and bring it in touch with the
outside world, are not to be found within its
boundaries.

But it has a greatness all its own that will
abide and enlarge as time goes on, because of
a lad born in old Bensalem more than a hun-
dred years ago. Men are living who knew
him when he was little and who proudly saw
him grow to an honored manhood. They had
been unwilling to leave to old scrapbooks of
desultory and disconnected newspaper clip-
pings the telling of the story of his life.
Therefore, it has been possible to go among
them and to jot down what they have said of
Isaiah Williamson. It is well worth while to
collect the notes, and put them in authentic
permanent form for the sake of the thousand
and sixteen boys who at this writing 1 have
already felt his influence in their lives. 2 We

1 Probably in May, 1907.

s The author is referring to Williamson's great philanthropy
— the trade school that bears his name. The 1016th apprentice was
enrolled on April 17, 1907. At the end of 1927 the number of
indentures had reached 2293. In the history of the school
"over 10,000 applications have been made for admission to the
benefits of Mr. Williamson's philanthropy," stated President
Pratt on November 16, 1927.

THE BACKGROUND

3

are moved to do this also for the sake of the
tens of thousands more, just beginning to
live, who cannot but be influenced for good
when they read of this poor country boy.
There is inspiration in the story of the Ben-
salem lad who, in a simple way, amassed a
great fortune and used it wisely during his life
by sinking wells and safeguarding them, that
their life-giving streams might flow on
through the ages to come.

Let us go back to old Bensalem, whose
queer name breathes benediction and peace.
We shall keep on a straight turnpike with our
story, which will best be told as simply as
possible.

On a late summer afternoon, not so very
long ago, two old friends, rather up in
years, stopped as they were walking along a
road in Bensalem Township. The man of
smaller stature, not more than five feet, six
inches in height, thin and rather bent of shoul-
ders, paused to point out to his comrade of
early years a one-and-a-half story weather-
beaten farmhouse. The man whose little
kindly hand pointed out the old house said to
his friend, as they stood together on Clover

4 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

Hill, " Under the roof of that house is where
I first opened my eyes." The speaker was
Isaiah Vansant Williamson, who, with his
old friend, had gone back to see kinsfolk and
friends in the region of his birthplace and
childhood, and to stand once more near the
early home of the beloved mother who long
before had journeyed on. One of the richest
men in Pennsylvania, one of the most influen-
tial in the great city where he lived, began
his life in that wooden house. There he lived
until he was four years old. In 1807, his
parents, Mahlon and Charity Williamson,
moved their family to the old homestead in
Falls Township, the other side of Bristol,
near Trenton, where Isaiah's grandparents
had lived.

This century-old farmhouse, about four
miles from the village of Fallsington, appears
today pretty much as it did when Mahlon and
Charity Williamson were rearing a family
there. After nearly four score years Isaiah
Williamson was neither afraid nor ashamed
to go back to Bensalem and Falls, and to take
with him those with whom he had been asso-
ciated in later years. This was because he had

THE BACKGROUND

5

been an honest boy of good conduct, and be-
cause he had lived true to his father's and
mother's principles and instructions after he
had moved away into the city. It was only an
afternoon's ride from Philadelphia, and he re-
turned frequently to meet the friends of his
youth and early manhood. These old friends
stopped to speak to him as he passed along the
country roads making his visits. They called
him " I. V.," just as they had done in the early
days, and they said to each other, as they went
along after the greeting, that " I. V." was
" just the same — money has not changed him
a speck."

How could he be other than the sunny-
faced, gentle-mannered, softly-spoken man he
had been from the beginning, when his man-
ners, when his gifts came to him as birthday
tokens?

He was " the grand old man " to the
country friends, who knew him through and
through. Did he not remember them and
call them by their first names, asking for the
man who broke his leg or lost his sick horse
and had to be helped out of some distressing

6 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

trouble? And was it not done without any-
one knowing from whom the person in
trouble received help? About the only hatred
this true, good Quaker had was " publicity."
For that matter, everybody said this much of
him, but sadly enough the city people did not
stop at that, and though he was persistently
criticized, the man does not live who ever
heard Isaiah Williamson speak ill of anyone.

Did they not all know that city life and
money had not spoiled him, though he had
gone off early from the Bucks County farm,
where he had his first start and entered the
village store, and from that ladder, as others
have done, climbed up to the city business?
In his later days, he became a farmer again —
a money farmer; he ploughed for it, planted
for it, kept close personal touch on his finan-
cial fields of growing crops and from the wise
planting and steady watch, reaped great har-
vests; yet he did not build his life upon it or
let the money twist his life into personal
aggrandizement, politics or speculation. He
never cornered the stock market; he never
helped to lock up money, as his vast wealth
would have enabled him to do; he never

THE BACKGROUND

7

profited by questionable transactions within
the companies of which he was a director, by
absorption of other companies, freezing out
the unasserting and helpless minorities.

He was a well-born man. Let the young
fellow of good ancestry never forget that he
starts with what the lack of to many another
is a lifelong handicap. It is a great thing for
any man to be well-born.

Isaiah Vansant Williamson found in his
early years that he had much to be proud of
in his ancestry, and doubtless his resolve not to
do anything to tarnish the memory of their
honorable and useful lives held him firmly to
the upright course of life that marks every
footstep of his long and busy days.

Because it has been thought and said that
the people from whom he sprang were insig-
nificant as well as poor, it is necessary to set
forth at some detail what is known of these
Williamsons that settled in Bucks County
nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. Hard-
working they were, indeed, but fairly edu-
cated themselves, they educated their children
and trained them to the good-living, common
in all the Quaker homes of that period, no

8 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

matter how humble; and it was a healthy
atmosphere for a boy to grow up in that large
family of eight children, making a little
world of itself in the farmhouse, with its dairy
and barns, smokehouse and toolhouse, cattle,
and chores for the six boys and two girls to
do. The schoolwork, too, had to go on in the
wintertime. The long evenings for lessons
and talk around roaring fires of wood-logs
burning in the great fireplace, near the old
clock which Grandfather Peter brought from
England, sixty-odd years before, and their
father, Mahlon, recounting often, doubtless,
the events of those Revolutionary days, when
the British came up the Delaware and fired a
cannon at their grandfather's house, at Penn
Manor 3 ; and Isaiah's father was a baby in
that old cradle, in yon corner, when a cannon
ball struck the doorstep and bounced over the
cradle without hitting anything — and there
that same cannon ball was lying in their sight,
on the strong corner shelf of their home room.
That cannon ball is missing today, but the old

8 The incident referred to occurred when Peter Williamson
was living at Beverly, on the New Jersey side of the Delaware,
and not at Penn Manor. An armed barge threw a six-inch shot
into the house, which passed just over the head of Mahlon.

THE BACKGROUND

9

clock and the cradle are with Jesse's son,
Edward, in his home at Morrisville, Bucks
County, Pennsylvania. 4

A sturdy clean Scotchman was the founder
of the Williamson family in America. Dunck
Williames, as he spelled his name in the
earliest records, arrived in New England,
probably in 1660. His name is to be seen on
the list of passengers sailing from Taunton,
Massachusetts, in 1661, to the Block Island
Plantations, afterwards included in Rhode
Island. Later, in 1667, with his wife, Wallery,
he settled on the Delaware River below what
is now Trenton, nearly fifteen years before
the advent of William Penn. It was just after
the Dutch rulers had been expelled from New
Amsterdam. The Delaware Valley had long
been a bone of contention between Swedes
and Dutch, in which the Dutch got the upper
hand.

But many English and Scotch settlers
must have already been in the country, be-
cause the earliest records at Upland (now

'Edward Williamson died on October 10, ion* The clock
is in possession of a niece, Mrs. H. B. Harper, of Trenton j
and the cradle is in the Frank Williamson home, in Lancaster.

io LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

Chester) under English jurisdiction (1676)
show a number of names of undoubted Eng-
lish and Scotch origin. " Dunck " was a con-
traction of Duncan, and the " Williames "
soon became Williamson. Duncan Williamson
must have had some influence with the Court
of St. James, for at the time of his arrival he
was able to join with eight others in obtain-
ing title to a tract known as Passyunk, and
thus became one of the first settlers to get title
in the Philadelphia area. The patent was
granted by Governor Richard Nichols, in
1667. On July 18, 1676, Governor Sir Edmund
Andros granted to Duncan Williamson and
Francis Walker four hundred and fifty acres
on the lower side of Neshaminy, in the present
limits of Bensalem Township. 6 This land
extended back from the river. Williamson
established a ferry across to New Jersey, which
still bears his name. On the Jersey side, at
Beverly, some of his descendants settled.

The first Williamson's name is on the list
of " Tydable persons under jurisdiction of the
court," as belonging to Taokanink (now

* These grants were afterwards confirmed by William Penn.

THE BACKGROUND

ii

Tacony), in 1677. In November, 1678, he
served on the jury at Upland Court. This is
supposed to be the first jury empaneled in
what later became Pennsylvania.

The records show that on November 12,
1678, Dunck Williames petitioned to take up
one hundred acres " on the lower syde of
Nieshambenies Creek, 50 acres thereof att ye
river syde and ye other 50 acres up in the
woods." The next year, on March 12, 1679,
he petitioned to take up four acres of marsh
back of his " plantaceion."

Duncan Williamson died in 1699, and was
buried in the Williamson family burying-
ground in Bensalem Township, about three
miles from Bristol. But the name of " Dunk's
Ferry " has persisted to this day. 6 Something
like a century later it occurs, for instance, in
one of General Washington's letters during
the Revolution.

" Head Quarters, Trenton Falls,
"Sir: 10th December, 1776.

" Yours of last evening reached me at 4 o'clock this
morning. I immediately sent orders to Commodore
Seymour to despatch one of his gallies down to Dunk's

■ The c in Dunck has been dropped.

12 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

Ferry, and I shall dispose of the remainder in such manner
and at such place as will be most likely not only to
annoy the Enemy in their Passage but to give the earliest
Information of any attempt of that kind.

" George Washington.

" To Hon'ble Thomas Wharton, Junr., Esqr.,
" President of the Council
" of Safety, Philadelphia."

Now this Duncan Williamson, founder of
the family, was not so absorbed in farm and
ferry as to forget the important matter of
child-training. For, in 1679, he made an
agreement by which one Edward Draufton,
also a resident of that township, was to teach
his children to read the Bible. The fee was
to be two hundred guilders, and the limit of
time one year. 7

'John Wanamaker evidently got this information from the
records of Upland Court, where we find that Edward Draufton
sued Dunck Williames for breach of contract. There was some
difference of opinion as to Draufton's ability as a quick teacher.
The court record reads:

" The Pit demands of this Deft 200 Gilders for
teaching this Defts children to Read in one Yeare.

" The Court hayeing heard the debates of both parties
as alsoe ye attestation of ye witnesses Doe grant judmt
agst ye deft for 200 gilders wth ye Costs.

" Richard Draufton sworne in Court declares that
hee was p'sent at ye makeing that ye agreemt was that
Edmund draufton should Teach Dunkes children to Read
in ye bybell & if hee could doe itt in a yeare or a halfe
yeare or a quartr, then he was to haue 200 gilders."

THE BACKGROUND

13

It is at least evident that the several-times-
great-grandfather Duncan not only had an
ideal as to child-teaching and child-training,
and wanted it realized, but that he was an
American pioneer in that field as well as in
others and that his idea remained with the suc-
cessive generations.

William, the eldest of Duncan's children,
inherited the greater part of the father's land
by will ; and dying at the age of forty-two, left
it to his widow and several children. His
wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Jan Claessen.
•William's death occurred on Christmas Day,
1 72 1, and he was buried in the cemetery of
Gloria Dei Church (" Old Swedes "), Phila-
delphia. William's son, Peter, was born before
there was any record of births. But we know
that he married Leah Le Niser on January 19,
1 73 1, and that when he died in 1760 he left his
property in Bensalem Township to his elder
son, Jacob. The younger son, Peter, who bore
his father's name, was born on January 17,
11735, afl d moved to Falls Township in 1764,
when he married Sarah Sotcher, grand-
daughter of William Penn's steward at Penns-
bury. During the Revolutionary War he

14 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

lived at Beverly, and among his eight children
was Mahlon, the father of Isaiah.

Mahlon Williamson was born on March
J S> r 777» an d ne married Charity Vansant,
who brought Dutch and French blood into the
Williamson family. Charity's father, Cor-
nelius, married Anne Larzelere, descendant
of Jacques La Resaleur. Her grandmother
was Charity Van Horn, 8 and her grandfather,
Isaiah Vansant, for whom our hero was
named Isaiah Vansant Williamson, who was
born on February 4, 1803, was, like his father,
one of eight children.

8 The Van Horn family were almost original settlers of New
Amsterdam, deriving their descent from Christian Barendtse,
who came from Hoorn Brabdant. Charity's father, Peter Van
Horn, was a vestryman in St. James P. E. Church at Bristol.
The family had been living along Neshaminy Creek for many
years before > Charity married Isaiah Vansant, in 1732. The
father of Isaiah Vansant was married at the First Presbyterian
Church in Philadelphia, to Rebecca Vandegrift, in 1707.

II

THE PREPARATION

HE little eight-sided schoolhouse by
the roadside, toward Mahlon Wil-
liamson's farm, did not hold Isaiah
for long. He soon outgrew it. In
keeping with the family tradition for
education, his parents made the sacrifice of
putting him in the excellent Friends' School at
Fallsington, a pay school for more advanced
teaching. But before and after school Isaiah
was a helper on the farm. He was then about
twelve years old and walked daily the eight
miles to and from school, lucky enough some-
times to catch a ride on the way. Most likely
Peter and John, his brothers, were there also ;
and the Vansant children, cousins on his
mother's side, from another part of the county.
There were boys of the Baldison family, too,
of whom John, the eldest, was Isaiah's inti-
mate friend. And among the boys and girls of
other families, there was one girl in particular,
the daughter of Harvey Gillingham, store-

15

16 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

keeper at Fallsington, of whom more will be
said further on.

Isaiah's cousins, the Vansant children,
would be his daily schoolmates and play-
mates ; they were of good, solid Dutch stock,
which was also Isaiah's inheritance on his
mother's side. She was descended from Gerrit
Vansant, who came to this country in 1651, as
he testified in taking the oath of allegiance at
New Utrecht, Long Island, in September,
1687. The records of the Dutch Reformed
Church at that place note the baptism of
several of Gerrit's children. Gerrit and his
son, Jacobus, purchased land on Neshaminy
Creek, each having about one hundred and
fifty acres, the deeds being dated and recorded
in December, 1698; and there they finally
settled. Charity Vansant, of the fourth gen-
eration from Gerrit, was born in Bensalem
Township, just at the close of the Revolution-
ary War, November 16, 1781. She was a
woman of sympathetic nature and was Isaiah's
confidant, having much influence over his
early life.

At the time Isaiah attended the Orthodox

H^HHIHBHHHHBiiHHHHHIH^HHHi^^H

MEETING HOUSE, HICKSITE FRIENDS, FALLSINGTON, PENNA.

THE ORTHODOX MEETING HOUSE AND SCHOOL BUILDING
IN THE REAR

THE PREPARATION

17

Friends' School, the Hicksite split had not
occurred, and of course the Hicksite meeting
house — adjoining the Orthodox meeting house
at Fallsington to this day — had not been built.
The schoolhouse attached to the original meet-
ing house of the Friends was built about the
middle of the eighteenth century.

In the early part of the nineteenth century,
about 1 815, Jonathan Palmer was the prin-
cipal teacher of this school, a man said to have
been uncommonly well-educated for that day.
He was supported partly by the Friends'
Meeting, and partly by the farmers who sent
their children to be educated.

The sessions of the school were held six
days in the week — in the morning from eight
to twelve, and in the afternoon from one to
five o'clock, except in winter, when they closed
an hour earlier. During the eleventh and first
months (November and January), the girls
were kept at home at work, to make room for
the boys at school; in the fourth and fifth
months (April and May) the boys were
obliged to stay home in order to give the girls
a chance ; and during the seventh and eighth

1 8 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

months (July and August) there were no
school sessions because all the boys and girls
were needed in the farm work.

In this school, among other studies,
Jonathan Palmer taught English, French,
Latin and mathematics — including geometry,
trigonometry and surveying.

Of the Baldison boys in the school at this
time, John — a year older than Isaiah, and his
special comrade — was fond of mathematics,
and gave particular attention to surveying;
his brothers made a specialty of French.
Isaiah, also, had his predilections; while he
took the general course right through, his
favorite studies seem to have been mathe-
matics in various forms, surveying, and French
— the latter being kept up in later years after
he went to Philadelphia, where he took private
lessons from a good French teacher. Isaiah is
spoken of as having been " a bright student "
while in the Friends' School. It may be as-
sumed that his lively and fun-loving spirit
would enter into the sports and pastimes and
good-natured joking that every wholesome
schoolboy shares. But that he was faithful to

THE PREPARATION 19

his work and was really interested in his
studies may be safely inferred not only from
his lifelong characteristics, but from the fact
that he continued them by taking private les-
sons from Palmer after leaving school and
while he was a clerk.

Presumably three years at the Fallsington
School carried our diligent, conscientious lad
as far as his teachers could. He was now be-
tween fifteen and sixteen years old, and on the
question of whether he should become a
farmer or not, his parents no doubt had much
to say. Any such boy who makes a confidant
of his mother, as he did, and who had been
brought up as members of the Society of
Friends train their children, would not make
a decision except with his parents' consent
and approval.

The fact that Isaiah's brothers were well
grown and able helpers on the farm made it
possible for him to choose some other employ-
ment. More than that, the brisk, bright,
energetic lad, careful, accurate and trust-
worthy in all his habits, who took the lead in
doing the store errands, showed a developing

20 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

aptitude for business, though not in an extra-
ordinary manner. He was simply a prompt,
painstaking, dependable, industrious fellow
with good sense and right principles, with a
greater liking for a store than the farm.

Naturally, he thought of the store at Fall-
sington, where his family dealt and where he
was known. He applied there for a position.
The storekeeper, Harvey Gillingham, was
willing to take him as an apprentice. In those
days, the system of apprenticing was the rule
everywhere and, so far as is known, young
Williamson became an indentured apprentice
for a term of six or seven years.

Every one that knew Williamson inti-
mately, knows that up to his death, he earnestly
maintained that the best thing that happened
to him when he was young was his apprentice-
ship to Harvey Gillingham. In those days,
the apprentice was obliged to live with his
employer, and received beside his board,
lodging, and clothes, not more than fifty
dollars the first year, with increases of wages
each year. Beside the little store in the village
of five hundred inhabitants, Gillingham had

THE PREPARATION

21

a grist mill near the store and later a lumber
yard.

These conveniences for the farmers to get
grocery and drygoods supplies, and to turn
into flour their wheat, and supply building
materials, made the Gillingham Store " at the
Corners " a centre not only for the village but
all the surrounding townships. It supplied
everything for the farm and the household,
stoves, agricultural implements, hardware,
clothing for women, men and boys.

The farmers brought in their poultry,
eggs and butter, their pork, potatoes and
apples, their wheat and oats, and traded them
for harrows and harness, muslin and silk, soap
and tobacco, powder and shot.

Gillingham's supplies came from Phila-
delphia, and thither he hauled the accumu-
lated produce and sold it to the country
produce dealers there for cash. Generally the
wagons were driven to Morrisville or Bristol,
where the miscellaneous cargo was transferred
to a sailboat and carried to Philadelphia.

Gillingham's business was considerable,
as shown by his books. One winter, for
example, nineteen hogsheads of sugar were

22 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

brought up to him from Philadelphia, with
other goods in proportion. 1

Young Williamson threw himself, with
heart and soul, into this whirl of country trad-
ing life, and everything goes to show that in
Mr. Gillingham he had a splendid teacher
and that he was an apt, enthusiastic scholar.
The boy soon did a man's work, was never
tired, never absent, never idle and, of course,
earned and received more wages.

At the store he was known not as a dandy,
but as a fine, attentive lad. His quick, manly
ways pleased the far-seeing, solid Broadbrims.
They recognized merit, integrity and indus-
try in him, and their wives found him alert

'A visit to Fallsington in 1027, nearly twenty years after
this MS was written, and more than a hundred years after Isaiah
Williamson worked there, reveals a very small place, with virtu-
ally no business. Fallsington is not far from the thriving cities
of Trenton and Bristol. But it is off the railroad and Wheat
Sheaf Station on the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad,
which used to serve it, and where trains still stopped in John
Wanamaker's day, has now been given up. Fallsington, although
only a few hundred yards distant, is not on the Lincoln High-
way, and could easily be missed by motorists passing on
the Philadelphia-New York road. But in the days of Isaiah
Williamson's clerking, roads were few and difficult, and farmers
depended on the local store not only as their market for sup-
plies but as their middleman to dispose of what they raised. It
is interesting to remember that less than fifteen years before
Williamson went to clerk in the Gillingham Store, Fallsington
was seriously considered as the site of the national capital, and
came very nearly being chosen for that great destiny.

THE PREPARATION

23

and polite as he rushed out to help them down
from the farm carriage, to tie their horses, and
to carry in their bundles. They appreciated
his bright ways and bright words, knowing all
the while that there were deeper depths of his
nature, reserve forces, aptness and comprehen-
sion even in those formative days of young
manhood.

It is wonderful how the memory of per-
sonality, of courtesy, of willingness to oblige,
remains through the years, and comes down
from one generation to another. Isaiah Wil-
liamson was working in the Gillingham Store
eighty years ago, and yet Mrs. Rose Parsons
Case, of Morrisville, remembers her mother
speaking of Isaiah V. Williamson with admir-
ation. Probably that mother went to the store
in her early married days, and yet she talked
to her daughter so enthusiastically about the
Philadelphia philanthropist in his storekeep-
ing days that Mrs. Case was able recently to
quote her mother as having said : " He was a
young man of sterling worth, prompt and deft
in waiting upon customers, respectful and
polite to all, an admirable clerk, as much in-

24 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

terested in the business pertaining to the store
as was Mr. Gillingham, the proprietor."

The lessons of Quaker thrift and indus-
try, of conservatism and economy, which
Isaiah had been taught at home by his wise and
cautious parents, became advancing studies in
those seven memorable years spent in Gilling-
ham's store and home. He would hitch up a
wagon and drive around the country to pick
up all sorts of country produce. In this way,
he learned how to make a good trade. Twice
a year the stock of the store had to be
replenished in Philadelphia, and he was
occasionally sent there to make purchases to
replace goods sold out.

Isaiah's fairness, good temper, straightfor-
wardness and absolute trustworthiness, and
withal an inherited modesty, made him popu-
lar and a general favorite with every one com-
ing into contact with him. Recognized by Mr.
Gillingham and his customers to be important
and useful, young Williamson never assumed
any sense of it and was the same unconceited
chap that he was the first day he came into the
store.

He spent his Sundays with his parents, and

THE PREPARATION

25

with them and his brothers and sisters attended
the Friends' Meeting. The years sped on hap-
pily and prosperously, as the young fellow
grew in wisdom and ability for business life.

Living in Mr. Gillingham's family, he was
regarded almost as a son and the brother of
the Gillingham children. But for the daugh-
ter, who was a schoolmate of earlier years,
there came gradually into Williamson's heart
a deeper affection than brotherly friendship.
It is not now known how long they had loved
each other, what recognition of their affection
there may have been on the part of their fami-
lies, or even whether there was an engagement
to marry. Mary died of consumption while yet
a young woman. Isaiah's life was powerfully
affected by the loss of his companion. He be-
came restless, troubled, and anxious for a
change of scene. This sorrow was always
regarded at Fallsington as the chief reason of
his going to Philadelphia when he had com-
pleted his apprenticeship.

Having always lived in and near Fallsing-
ton, knowing everybody and by everybody
known, it was not without a struggle that the
young fellow turned away to seek his fortune

26 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

in Philadelphia, which even then was a large
city. His few trips for duplicating purchases
of Gillingham, who did his own buying,
had not left much opportunity for his clerk
to become known. Williamson entered the
city without a friend save his cousin, Peter
Williamson, living on Pine Street, between
Eighth and Ninth, opposite the Pennsylvania
Hospital.

From his boyhood, he was never much of
a talker, but he did a lot of thinking; and see-
ing that he had quarried everything of knowl-
edge and experience that he could get at the
Four Corners store, the only widening avenue
of progress open to him was the road to the
city, and thither he must go and find his way
for himself. The law of growth in the very
ground under his feet, as he walked over the
fields around his home, was working in the
young man's soul. He could not sit down and
fold his hands, and let it die out, nor could he
stifle it by allowing the thorns and thistles of
procrastination and cowardice to spring up to
delay him, in spite of efforts of kindly friends
advising to the contrary.

From childhood his mother and father

THE PREPARATION

27

taught him to be saving of everything, of
clothes and shoes, as well as of the small sums
of money that he earned as a boy and that they
gave him from time to time.

It was under the home roof that he learned
how to be careful in his expenditures, and as
a little boy at home as well as a bigger boy
apprenticed in a store, that he taught himself
how to save. The experience and lessons of
these early years were often referred to when
he was a prosperous man. He used to say that
before spending money it was worth while
for any one to think seriously of the lot of
things he could do without.

Little by little the savings of childhood,
together with what was laid aside of the earn-
ings of the seven years' apprenticeship,
amounted to two thousand dollars. This is
what he had to carry to the city to build his
future with. It was not much money. In fact,
it was less than a dollar a day for the seven
years of clerking. But it included all the
earlier savings. Two thousand dollars 1 The
cornerstone of the future millionaire's life.
One would say that this capital was necessary
in order to accomplish what Isaiah William-

28 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

son accomplished. But the face value of the
bank bills and gold was by no means the prin-
cipal part of the capital gathered together for
the investment in his future in the city. Isaiah
had:

A good birthright in the family name.

The good name he had earned for himself
as a school boy.

A fairly good education.

A well-earned reputation during the ful-
fillment of his apprenticeship.

Honesty, truthfulness, industry, energy,
and good habits, of which the people of Fall-
sington approved and to which they could
bear witness.

A training in storekeeping.

The knowledge that he could earn money
and save it if he wanted to.

These seven qualities far outweighed his
savings that were to be added to his qualifi-
cations as a city business man. Had he lacked
any one of these assets of character and experi-
ence, and had he disposed of ten times as much
money, his equipment would have been far
less likely to bring him success. This is only
mildly stating the facts.

Ill

EARLY YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA

HE year before Isaiah Williamson
went to the city to stay, a quaint little
volume was published, entitled " Phil-
adelphia in 1824," whose title page
proclaimed it to be " a complete
guide to strangers." This book gave the
population of the city proper as one hundred
and twenty-one thousand, and stated that " the
built up parts " stretched along the Delaware
River three or four miles, and backed up to-
ward the Schuylkill River to the extent of
only about a mile, covered with unbroken
buildings on both sides of the street. This
central region had as its principal thorough-
fare High Street, now Market Street, and was
bounded by Callowhill Street on the north,
and Lombard Street on the south. East and
south of Independence Hall was the finest
residential section. Center Square, now
covered by the City Hall, was practically
open country. The business center was only

29

30 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

two or three blocks back from the Delaware,
north and south of High Street.

It was on Second Street, near Chestnut,
that Williamson secured a position as sales-
man in a store that dealt in much the same
class of commodities as those to which he had
been accustomed in the country store at Fall-
sington. Doubtless he had a reference from
Gillingham, who probably recommended him
to the owner of this particular store. It is
known that the Fallsington people kept up
their interest in the youth who had gone to
Philadelphia, and bought from him when they
came to the city. Some often ordered goods
from him by mail.

Within a year it came to his knowledge
that the owner of a small drygoods store, lo-
cated on Second Street, above Pine, wanted to
sell his stock and fixtures. Isaiah had care-
fully kept his money and had added a little to
it. He was in a position to start in business
for himself, and the idea interested him. He
went to his cousin, Peter Williamson, a drug-
gist, and a level-headed man, for advice. The
cousin told him to buy the store. But Isaiah
was already cautious of his money, and he

EARLY YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA 31

thought it best to go home and talk to his
father about it. The father's advice Isaiah
had always taken, and he knew it to be prudent
and wise.

Mahlon Williamson had such confidence
in the integrity, good sense, and ability of his
son that he not only approved of the venture,
but sold some cattle that he might supplement
his son's meagre capital. He loaned Isaiah
several hundred dollars to enable him to in-
crease the stock of goods. This adventure,
entered into when he was twenty- four, was the
starting point of the career of Isaiah V. Wil-
liamson as a Philadelphia merchant.

From the very beginning he had consider-
able success. The next year, 1827, he took
William Barton into partnership, and they
moved their drygoods business to a larger
store, at the corner of Second Street and
Coombe's Alley. They appear to have at-
tempted to go also into the wholesale business,
as a commission house, in addition to their
retail business. But the partners proved to be
of unequal ability, and the partnership was
dissolved within a year. Isaiah was dis-
appointed, and was faced with the problem of

32 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

liquidating the business or buying out Barton's
interest. Once more he went home to consult
his father, who raised the money to enable his
son to become the sole owner. It was not long
before the young man's guiding principle of
not spending just because he was earning made
it possible for him to return the borrowed
money.

A little later Williamson was attracted by
the location and reputation of the business of
John S. Newlin, who had let it be known that
he wanted to retire. Williamson thought so
much of the opportunity that he sold his own
business with the idea of buying Newlin's.
But before doing so, with his usual caution,
he spent a year or more in the store as a clerk
under Newlin's tutelage, desiring to learn
everything about the business before risking
all his capital in pitting a country experience
against city methods. When he felt that he
knew the details of the business, Williamson
made a deal with Newlin, who then retired.
Williamson took hold with new ambition and
confidence.

One of the clerks was a Penn Manor boy,
H. Nelson Burroughs, who had had business

EARLY YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA 33

experience similar to Isaiah's in a large
country store at Taylorsville. The young men
were congenial in tastes and training. Both
had been accustomed to the practice of rigid
economy in the country stores from which they
came, and where they had learned also habits
of hard and diversified work. They ran the
city business with the same frugality and
energy and adaptability. Many a time Wil-
liamson might have been heard to say some-
thing like this :

" Nelson, get out the wheelbarrow, and
we'll bring over those goods I bought at
auction."

If they could save cartage, so much the
better. What work they could do themselves
they did. They followed the principle of
watching every penny. But rigid economy
and close attention to the details of the busi-
ness did not blind them to the bigger things.
They were always reaching out, dreaming
dreams and making them come true. Bur-
roughs soon developed a remarkable capacity
as a salesman, and he is said to have been one
of the first in Philadelphia, if not the pioneer,
to go out and solicit business for a wholesale

34 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

house. He was particularly successful with
the Southern merchants, who at that time
patronized Philadelphia more than any other
Northern city. He used to go to see them at
their hotels, won their confidence, entered into
their social life, and thus obtained a large
share of their trade. It is said that he some-
times sold goods to the amount of three
hundred thousand dollars in a year — a phe-
nomenal showing for a young salesman in
those days.

It is not surprising, therefore, that after
some time Burroughs was unwilling to work
any longer on salary. He asked to be admitted
to partnership. As Burroughs was too valu-
able a man to let a rival concern secure, Wil-
liamson acquiesced. Under the firm name of
Williamson and Burroughs, formed in 1834,
the business grew and prospered rapidly. Its
sales were larger than those of any drygoods
house in the city, and there were proportion-
ately larger profits. Both men looked out with
clear eyes over the city for opportunities to
invest their earnings. Burroughs became one
of the early presidents of the Commonwealth
National Bank. Williamson soon began to

EARLY YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA 35

impress his personality and influence upon the
financial life of the city.

It is interesting to consider the conditions
that existed in Philadelphia during the decade
in which Isaiah Williamson rose to the
position of the city's foremost drygoods
merchant, and to speak of other men with
whom he began to come into contact in the
business life of the city.

Isaiah Williamson was already well on
the way to outstanding success in the city of his
choice before railroads connected it with New
York and Baltimore, and before the new
form of transportation began to bring the west
into contact with the Atlantic seaboard. The
mails, as well as passengers and good, went
by steamboat, stage coach and wagon. The
revolution in the economic life of the nation
through steampower applied to transportation
on land and sea was just ahead.

Philadelphia was still lighted by oil lamps
— some sixteen hundred under the care of
night guards. Gas lighting came in 1835, the
year after Williamson and Burroughs formed
their partnership. But Philadelphia, com-
pared with other cities, was a metropolis, and

36 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

its public works and institutions, its homes and
churches, and high degree of culture were
things to boast of. The fine water system,
with the great reservoir at Fairmount on the
Schuylkill, had been completed. The city fire
plugs gave sufficient pressure to reach the tops
of the highest buildings, and the fire-fighting
volunteer hose companies did efficient work.

Eleven daily newspapers kept the city post-
ed. Of the meeting houses and churches, there
were nearly a hundred in 1825, representing
the Catholics and the various Protestant de-
nominations — Presbyterians, Methodists and
Episcopalians were most numerous, in the
order named. Those were the days when
chains were stretched across the streets in front
of the churches during Sunday services. The
charitable institutions included the notable
and splendidly conducted Pennsylvania Hos-
pital; three dispensaries affording aid to the
poor in their homes ; two almshouses ; several
asylums for orphans, women, the deaf and the
dumb, and lunatics; numerous humane and
soup societies, benevolent orders had lodges,
and other helpful organizations. The Frank-
lin Fund provided loans to assist " young, un-

EARLY YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA 37

married artificers " who had served their
apprenticeship.

In the Philadelphia and the Mercantile
libraries, the newcomer could find attractions,
as well as in the collections of the Philo-
sophical Society, the Philadelphia Museum,
the Academy of Natural Sciences, and the
Academy of the Fine Arts. At the fore stood
the University of Pennsylvania, the principal
building then being situated on Ninth Street,
where the Post Office now stands. Among the
scientific organizations were the College of
Physicians and the Philadelphia Medical
Society, and the new Franklin Institute, just
organized in 1824 — to bring together exhi-
bitions of the products of American work-
shops.

The theatres numbered five. Two of them
were temporary summer theatres at Tivoli
and Vauxhall Gardens near Centre Square.
The old Chestnut Street Theatre was then
one of the architectural features of the city.
The editor of the " Guide to Philadelphia in
1824" remarks in this connection: " Such are
the dramatic entertainments in Philadelphia.
If they are not as numerous as in some other

38 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

cities, it may be attributed perhaps to the
general disposition of the inhabitants inclin-
ing them to more sober and scientific amuse-
ments."

But Isaiah Williamson, on coming to
Philadelphia, doubtless found the statistics
regarding the city's wealth, commercial enter-
prises, and business outlook of chief attrac-
tion. The city's capital in 1823 was estimated
at $158,000,000, invested in Government and
bank stocks, and insurance companies; in
bridges, canals and roads; in factories, mer-
chandise and shipping; in personal and real
estate.

He found an efficient Chamber of Com-
merce, recommending fixed rates of commis-
sion on all forms of domestic and foreign
business; and the Custom House in its fine
new building on Second Street, below Dock.
He found a flourishing export and import
trade, the exports amounting annually to about
$10,000,000, and the imports to $14,000,000.
And he perceived that Philadelphia was even
then distinguished as a manufacturing city, its
cotton factories being especially notable, using
two or three thousand looms and annually

EARLY YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA 39

producing cotton cloth worth $2,000,000, or
more.

Three packet lines to Liverpool were
talked of, in order that the business of import-
ing for Philadelphia merchants, which for a
time had fallen into New York hands, could
be restored to the city. As to internal trade,
he learned that a surprising amount of busi-
ness was being done by wagons, especially
westward throughout the State. A single house
in Philadelphia loaded two hundred for Pitts-
burgh in one year, with an average weight of
two tons.

Williamson became interested, also, in the
two canals then in the process of building, the
Chesapeake and Delaware, and the Union; in
the stupendous work of the Schuylkill Navi-
gation Company by which navigation had just
been opened the whole way from Philadel-
phia to Reading and the coal mines; and espe-
cially in that organization of a couple of years
before, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Com-
pany, having the purpose " to bring to market
the valuable stone coal which abounds in a
mountain situated on the margin of the Le-
high, about forty-six miles above the con-

4 o LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

fluence." The anthracite coal business was
then in its infancy. With his quick, nervous
temperament, he clearly comprehended the
possibilities of the future development of the
city as a manufacturing and mercantile center.
He was constantly thinking of its future, of
which he was always as enthusiastic as his
nature would permit.

At that time there were also many young
men who, like Isaiah Williamson, were at the
beginning of business careers that later gave
them prominence. There was the shrewd and
diligent John Grigg, whose small book busi-
ness later developed into the large affairs of
Grigg, Elliott & Co., and finally into the
publishing house of J. B. Lippincott Com-
pany. Joseph H. Seal, a farmer's boy (whose
experiences paralleled Williamson's), had
then begun in a small way as a drygoods
merchant; he made his fortune in a few years,
and retired in 1838, leaving a large part of his
money in commercial enterprises as a special
partner, which was the good practice of sixty
years ago.

He came into contact with the active young
men of this time, such as John Welsh, Joseph

EARLY YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA 41

R. Evans, and Jonathan Fell, and their sons ;
Thomas Ridgway and his partner, John
Livezey; Alexander Henry, his son, and his
nephew of the same name ; Robert Wain and
his successors; the Becks, the Willings; the
Latimers; Jonathan Leedom; Eyre and
Massey, whose many ships went all over the
world; and Thomas P. Cope, then in the
prime of life, whose regular packet lines to
Liverpool, started in 1821, preceded all other
lines, all of whom gave him a certain inspira-
tion as these and others were all in the same
boat with himself, making their fortunes.

Henry Budd, James Steele, Henry Sloan,
and Alexander J. Derbyshire were clerks at
that time in various concerns. Isaac R. Davis,
also, was a clerk with H. C. Corbit, before the
drygoods firm of Corbit, Davis & Co., had
been formed. The sons of Matthew Carey,
pioneer publisher, were already fairly started
in the publishing and general bookselling
business, in the two firms of Carey & Lea and
Carey & Hart. George W. Carpenter, at
twenty-three, was still an assistant to Charles
Marshall in the drug business, and not till
three years later began the independent career

42 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

that sent his medicines all over the land. David
Freed, another country boy, had just started
in for himself in the retail flour trade. Charles
Oakford, whose hat manufacturing later
occupied many " palatial stores," was not done
learning his trade, and not until two years
later did he start out with his first order of
four hats taken in " a little cubby hole " on
Lombard Street. Edmund A. Souder, to whom
belongs the credit of beginning the coasting
trade to Maine and beyond, was still a young
clerk in a commission house. Charles S. Boker
— who in later years as president of the Girard
Bank rescued it from its difficulties — had at
that time scarcely more than made a start in
the business of hats and shoes. The young
Samuel Bispham had in a few years pushed
the wagon trade of Alter & Bispham all over
the State, and was laying the foundation for
the future strength of Samuel Bispham &
Sons. Six years older than Williamson, Ben-
jamin W. Richards — son of a wealthy father,
and a Princeton honor man — had married a
daughter of Joshua Lippincott, and in 1825,
the firm of Lippincott & Richards, commis-
sion merchants, was one of the largest in the

EARLY YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA 43

city. Five years later Richards was Mayor,
and through life one of Philadelphia's promi-
nent and best men.

These are a few of the young men who
were Isaiah's contemporaries and neighbors
in businesss when he came to Philadelphia,
and all of whom became more or less notable
in after years through their industry, fair deal-
ing and indomitable pluck. Contact with them
gave him a certain inspiration, as they were
all in the same boat with himself, making
their fortunes.

In this thriving, bustling city Isaiah
Williamson was matching a country boy's
experience against city methods. He found
that he had much to learn before he could hope
to attain a large success. There were many
strong men to compete with among Phila-
delphia's merchants, and there were many
long and well-established houses. Their signs
were numerous on Front, Water, Dock,
Second, Third, and High Streets.

But are not the country boys, ever anew
coming into the cities, the salvation of the
cities? God did not build cities. He made
trees and stored iron and stone and coal and

44 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

clay in the earth. To men he left the task of
finding and using these things. It was theirs
to mine and forge and dig and build brick
walls for homes and businesses. The majority
of men that have made outstanding records in
the cities were born among the trees and fields.

To Isaiah Williamson the city was an open
race course for country boys. He was not the
only one who came with the inexperience of
youth and filled with great ambition. He de-
termined to enter the race and make a fair
struggle to win. Win he did, amid great
applause from his fellow runners of those
early days, who praised his name and gave
him full credit at the time of his voluntary
retirement from the activities of Market
Street

Nature has given to almost every man a
dowry of latent energy that flames up to the
surprise of the man himself when he needs
it most.

Young Williamson came to Philadelphia,
saying to himself, " I must and will conquer
circumstances." All his strength rose and as-
serted itself when his will power became
enlisted in his work.

EARLY YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA 45

In 1837 the firm of Williamson & Bur-
roughs was dissolved. Isaiah retired, and his
youngest brother, Mahlon, became the active
Williamson of the firm. It was reorganized
under the name of Williamson, Burroughs
& Clark. Isaiah left money in the firm as a
special partner.

This was the end of Isaiah V. William-
son's active participation in the life of Phila-
delphia as a drygoods merchant. He felt that
he had made a comfortable fortune in less
than twelve years, and in those times the pos-
session of one hundred thousand dollars was
considered a large fortune. For a man still
in his thirties to have made in a little over a
decade a sum like this by straight business
dealing — no speculation — was a remarkable
feat. At the time of his retirement he had the
reputation of being one of the richest young
merchants in Philadelphia, and he was much
praised because his money was the result of
his own effort.

It was not uncommon in the past for busi-
ness men to fix an age or the amassing of a
certain sum of money as the time of retiring
from business. In our own time there are men

46 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

who have won fortunes, and who have with-
drawn from active business, and who have
made to education and charities the best of all
gifts, the gift of their time and talents to col-
lege and church work, notably in Philadel-
phia, Charles Custis Harrison and the late
George C. Thomas, and in New York, Morris
K. Jesup.

To Isaiah Williamson, who was not consti-
tutionally strong, and who was a bachelor with
simple tastes, one hundred thousand dollars,
in the thirties, was a mountain of money far
in excess of his personal needs. His decision
to retire in favor of his younger brother was
characteristic of the man. He always knew
when to stop. He was a man of few words,
good at listening but quick to stop when
through speaking, or when he had made his
bargain or concluded his investment. The
subsequent events of his life prove that he
knew when to stop giving all his time and
attention to a drygoods business on Market
Street.

It must also be borne in mind that the
country Quaker loved quiet and needed much
rest. He was fond of books. The extremely

EARLY YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA 47

modest man had attained a far greater degree
of culture than he was generally credited
with. He kept up the study of French under
a private tutor for some time after coming to
Philadelphia. He read it easily, and if he
did not speak fluently, it was because there
was none with whom to talk. A portion of his
books still remains in the possession of one of
his nephews, and there is eloquent testimony
to Williamson's intellectual tastes in glancing
along the shelves.

IV

SEEING THE WORLD

JFTER Isaiah Williamson withdrew
from Williamson & Burroughs, in
1837, he began to travel in his own
country and abroad. While he en-
joyed the novelty of foreign lands, his
tremendous belief in the great development of
his native land led him far afield in the United
States, seeking first-hand opportunities before
investing his fortune.

The hardships of travel did not deter him
— and there were hardships in those early
days of a kind we do not dream of. Where
the railroads went he followed them to the
railheads. But much of his travel had to be
in a stage coach or on a river steamer. Every-
where he studied industrial developments.
He knew all of his own state, in a thorough
way that few people even today, when travel
is so easy, know Pennsylvania. His favorite
trips were to the iron, coal and timber lands,
where he gathered information that stood him
48

SEEING THE WORLD

in good stead in after years. Pittsburgh had a
lifelong fascination for him. Up to his death
he watched the progress of the steel industry.

These travels, profitable to the shrewd
investor that he was from a business stand-
point, broadened his ideas and outlook, and
gave him an appetite for travel that led to
the European trip he had long looked for-
ward to. Leaving in May, 1841, on the Great
Western, whose voyage was 13 days, 9 hours
to Clifton.

From a well-written diary of his travels,
kept by Williamson, probably only for his
own eyes to refresh his memory in after
years, much is discovered of the man himself,
his sorrow in leaving friends, his enjoyment
of his companions making the same " Grand
Tour," his sympathetic nature, humor, and
tireless energy to make the most of time and
opportunity, his farseeing shrewdness in ob-
servations recorded of people, places and
customs. The intensely human side of him is
revealed in contradistinction to " the money
bag man " that some people took him for.
There are a hundred and thirty-four pages of
twenty-four lines and about three hundred

SO LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

words on a page, all written with neatness in
a small, round hand, clear as print, the i's
being dotted and the t's crossed with punctil-
ious care.

Apparently he was out to see everything
that was to be seen. If he reached a city in the
late afternoon, he must start right at sight-
seeing that very evening. Naturally, he gives
larger space to the prolonged sight-seeing in
such cities as London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna,
St. Petersburg, Moscow, Edinburgh and Dub-
lin. Everywhere he visited cathedrals, art
galleries, theatres, business houses, factories,
wharves, charitable institutions ; and expressed
himself with sympathetic shrewdness about
what he saw. He had his positive opinions
and comparisons as to the good, bad and in-
different in art, music, oratory and ceremonial.
His appreciative comments on the great men
of history, literature and art, as well as on liv-
ing personages he saw, were brief and passing.
But they were enough to show that he was not
only well informed but often held a point of
view that was peculiarly his own. He did
not just echo the words of the guide, the guide
book, or the work he was reading. As a

SEEING THE WORLD

traveller he was individualistic. And he felt.
His heart responded to the great things of
art and nature — to the grandeur of cathedral
and mountain, to the beauty of stained glass
or velvety lawn and waving meadow, to the
colors and figures of tapestry, and to the light
and shade of encastled river and lake. Many
things that he saw were not mentioned in the
guide book.

He was sympathetic, too, to human condi-
tions, pitiful toward poverty and sorrow; and
humorously cynical of shams. He knew, also,
when he was paying moderate prices and when
he was being overcharged.

Transoceanic steamers in 1841 landed
their passengers at Clifton, near Bristol.
From there Williamson went to London, with
stops at Bath and Reading. Before leaving
England he seems to have planned his Conti-
nental tour with his usual care for detail. Rail-
roads were still few. As in the United States
one had to travel between many points by river
steamer and stage. From London he went to
Brighton, Portsmouth, and the Isle of Wight.
The Channel steamer took him up the Seine
to Rouen. After a stay in Paris and Lyons, he

52 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

entered Switzerland at Geneva, first having
stopped at Chamonix. A steamer took him
along Lac Leman to Vevey. He circled
around to Basel, via Freiburg. There he
started the journey down the Rhine, with a
side trip to Frankfort. He stopped at Mainz,
Coblentz, Cologne and Dusseldorf. He left
the Rhine at Gorcum to go to Amsterdam by
coach, passing through Utrecht. In Holland
he saw also Haarlem, Leyden, the Hague,
and Rotterdam; and in Belgium, Antwerp,
Brussels, and Liege.

Then began at Aix La Chapelle the jour-
ney across Europe that few in those days had
the time, money, energy, and will to make.
The itinerary was: Bremen, Hamburg, Leip-
zig, Dresden, Magdeburg, to Hamburg again
by steamer, to Lubeck by diligence, and by
water to Travemunde, where he boarded the
Baltic Sea steamer for the four-day trip to St.
Petersburg. After ten days in the capital of
Russia, he was not dismayed to travel by dili-
gence to Moscow and back. Leaving Russia
by the Baltic Sea route to Hamburg, he
crossed the North Sea back to London.

What he had seen of Continental culture

SEEING THE WORLD

and civilization made him feel that he ought
to study at first-hand the culture and civili-
zation of the land from which his ancestors
had come and which was akin to that of
his native land. Philadelphians, especially
Quakers, feel more at home in England than
anywhere else abroad. The diary records
visits to Cambridge, Sheffield, Leeds, York,
Ripon, Newcastle, Berwick, Kelso, Sidbury,
and Melrose Abbey, on the way to Edinburgh.
He went from Edinburgh to Dundee on a
small steamer; thence to Sterling, Callander,
the Trossachs, Dumbarton, and Glasgow.
There he took a steamer to Belfast, went north
to the Giant's Causeway, and then to Dublin.
After Ireland, Wales. He crossed from
Kingston to Holyhead; thence to Bangor,
Chester, and Liverpool. Once more in Eng-
land he visited Birmingham, Warwick, and
Stratford-on-Avon. The diary ends abruptly
with an account of Lord Mayor's day after
his return to London in November.

These details are given to show that it
was not an idling pleasure excursion that
Isaiah Williamson undertook in those days
of limited conveniences for rapid travel. He

54 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

traversed England, Ireland, Scotland, France,
Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Russia;
visited the great art galleries of the principal
cities and studied the old masters of painting
and sculpture; also the great Universities of
Cambridge, Edinboro and Glasgow, as well
as the hospitals and schools.

So did this country lad, of Fallsington
village, choose to do with his first free time,
when he spent, perhaps, the largest amount of
money that he ever spent for himself in all of
his life.

V

AT THE CROSS-ROADS

IS return to his native land set him
down at the " Four Corners " again,
not in old Bucks County, but in Phila-
delphia, where he faced the real cross-
roads of his life in determining his
future course.

He was out of business, still in his young
manhood, unmarried and with all his time to
do as he pleased. He was a handsome, well-
dressed man in those days, slender, erect and
alert, rather less than medium height, with
dark hair, expressive and extremely bright
eyes, smooth face and firm mouth, and with a
rare touch of gentleness.

As a rich, good-looking, young bachelor,
only forty years old, with education and re-
finement, he might have been a social lion had
he so chosen. He was fond of society, enjoyed
the company of good women and clever men,
liked horses and dogs, as his diary and some
old letters prove.

55

56 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

At this period of his life, nothing was
farther from his thought and purpose than
to become in any sense a recluse ; neither was
he of the kind who think that they have done
the world a service in being born into it and
that it ought to find for him for the rest of his
days, some highly honorable and remunera-
tive position, without hard work or great
responsibility.

It may be fairly said, for reasons that fol-
low, that his determination had been finally
to remain a bachelor. Having lost his first
choice of a country girl, by death, when he
came to live in the city he endeavored to win
as a wife a most worthy woman, to whom he
paid court and to whom he proposed mar-
riage. But he was refused as too poor and
with a business too uncertain. It is stated that
in after years, when better off, he renewed his
proposal to the same person and was again
refused for being too richl

Had he desired to return to the drygoods
business he established, doubtless every door
would have opened to him. With the repu-
tation that he had made and the good judg-
ment he possessed, he could with his means

AT THE CROSS-ROADS

have allied himself with almost any of the
large financial or business concerns of the city.

Having voluntarily retired from business,
because he was not ambitious to go farther
either for fame or riches, when he returned
to America he was for a short time at a stand-
still as to what his future life was to be.

He is known to have entertained the idea
of going back to Europe to continue his
studies of the great cities and peoples which
he had not visited. The early forties were
the most perplexing period of his life. One
thing that is said to have brought him home
from abroad was the notice that had been
drawn to coal lands and their advancement in
values. He had large investments in certain
important coal properties.

The strenuous and thorough investigations
he had made prior to investing his capital
proved the excellence of his judgment, be-
cause all his investments greatly enhanced in
value. The careful survey he had to make of
his properties and the examinations of other
investments offered to him, to take up his
income uninvested, deferred his return to
Europe until he lost his enthusiasm for it.

58 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

But much more than this, other influences
were silently and strongly working upon his
mind and heart, by which he was uncon-
sciously being led to a new view of his life
and to enter upon a new career.

The world grew larger and finer to him
as he wandered through the British Museum
and the National Gallery of London. The
great universities were to him the living rep-
resentatives of the wise and good whose bene-
factions had made possible these great seats
of learning. He was deeply stirred by the
touch he had with the forces working for the
world's uplift in science, art and general edu-
cation.

While he walked among the treasures of
the old past, he saw signs of a new life as he
watched the artists at their work and the
teachers in their college classrooms. He wan-
dered about the streets and shops, drinking in
the vitality of an advancing civilization. The
effect upon him was depressing. He had cut
the connection with the living forces and
activities of his time. He had cast himself
upon an island in the midst of a great sea and
chosen to be a Robinson Crusoe. He could

AT THE CROSS-ROADS

not rid himself of the thought that he was a
lone man, without an object in life.

In London he heard much of what Earl
Shaftesbury, a noble Lord, with leisure and
means, was doing for the poor of London.
In Bristol, he saw the large orphan houses
built by George Mueller. Wherever he went,
he saw the endowed schools and hospitals,
built by the gifts of retired merchants, bank-
ers, and generous women, like Lady Burdett
Coutts.

The man most talked about in Philadel-
phia, when Isaiah Williamson first came
to town, was Stephen Girard — the merchant
and mariner, who stood first on the roll of
its eminent citizens. Girard's vast wealth and
business successes were constantly referred to
with wonder and praise. He had begun in
poverty, peddled oranges on the streets of
Philadelphia, and advanced slowly, step by
step, to the first place in its business world.

His patriotic support of the Government
during the War of 1812 and his many be-
nevolences were constantly on the public
tongue. People liked to talk about everything
Girard did. His peculiar walk, old gig, his

6o LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

one eye and his queue, his odd coat and char-
acteristic speech, always enlisted the young
countryman's interest and admiration. He
thought often of the fact that Stephen Girard
had not accomplished large financial results
until he was past forty. For ten years, he
listened to all that was said of Girard, and
during that ten years, until Girard died in
1 83 1, he watched him as a young beginner
always watches the older business leaders of
their time. Girard's life and work, uncon-
sciously at first but admittedly afterward,
greatly influenced young Williamson's course
of life. His conscience now was keenly alive
to what Girard had done — after he was forty
— and to the fact that he himself had stopped
before he was forty doing anything but what
he pleased. That he was forty now and might
possibly do his best work, were he willing,
haunted him as though he heard voices, like
Jeanne d'Arc, bidding him to not throw away
his best years.

He had what the Quakers call " a con-
cern."

As in all his extremities, for good counsel
he sought the advice of his cousin, Peter Wil-

AT THE CROSS-ROADS 61

liamson, whose house he often called his home.
Peter Williamson was an excellent citizen.
He was one of the founders of the Southern
Dispensary, the Southwark Soup Society;
also of the College of Pharmacy, of which he
was a trustee, having been a successful drug-
gist for many years. He was one of the
originators and directors of the Western Sav-
ing Fund and a prominent Mason, filling the
chair of the Right Worshipful Grand Master
and Right Worshipful Grand Treasurer of
the Grand Lodge, F. & A. M., of the State
of Pennsylvania, which antedates all the other
Grand Lodges of the United States. Peter
Williamson was a broad-minded, wise coun-
sellor, a man of affairs, and a helper of his
fellowmen, giving strong support, service and
aid to all public and private charities. His
strength of character, highmindedness, unself-
ishness, and public influence, led to his
judgment being sought after by his fellow
citizens.

At this period of Isaiah Williamson's life
he could not have had a better adviser than
this older cousin.

The turning point of his career had come.

62 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

In the long and frequent interviews, the
whole ground of Isaiah Williamson's position
was gone over:

1. He had gone out of business because he
had reached the goal he aimed for, and had
abundant money for his own needs.

2. He had none of kin dependent upon
him and there were none of his relations that
could not and were not taking care of them-
selves.

3. His investments were growing well
and he would have a surplus to divide among
them, if he wished, from the advanced values,
accumulating dividends and savings through
small living expenses.

4. He desired to travel, enjoy the old
world as well as the new, and cultivate his
mind beyond what was possible when he was
younger.

Peter Williamson, with great tact, drew
out information touching the investments that
Isaiah had made. Developments going on
were likely to lead to a sudden rise in value
of coal properties and coal railroads. Isaiah's
investments in this field, therefore, might
produce a million of dollars.

AT THE CROSS-ROADS 63

All things pointed plainly to a new side
of Isaiah Williamson's brain. He was more
than a merchant, he was also a financier, like
Marshall Field, who came along later on the
same path.

It was a surprise to both Peter and Isaiah
that this unlooked-for development of char-
acter and power had come. Other investors
were just as diligent, cautious, painstaking, in
study of enterprises. But results proved that
the keen perceptions and soundness of judg-
ment possessed by Isaiah Williamson were
most uncommon and amounted to a talent
which, hitherto, had lain dormant.

Therefore, this previously unknown some-
thing in the quality of his mind must now be
taken into account and worked just the same
as the lead or silver veins that might come to
light on the owner's farm.

The calm, deliberate discussions of these
two kinsfolk slowly settled down to a sum-
ming up somewhat like this :

Isaiah was in good health, with a prob-
ability of years to give to making money for
himself.

He had found out that he could not only

64 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

amass wealth, but also do what many others
could not do. He could organize himself to
control the saving of it. Not needing it for
himself, he had no right to wrap his talent in
a napkin but turn it over and over to the
utmost for others needing to be helped.

The example of Stephen Girard had taken
deep root in Isaiah Williamson's soul, and he
was much drawn towards some such work for
his own country, and similar to what was
going on in and about London, where he had
recently been.

Slowly, steadily but surely, Williamson,
under a deep sense of his accountability for
talents and wealth, came to the renunciation
of his arranged plans. He resolved to use
all his ability, whatever it was, and the gains
thereof, for the benefit of his fellowmen.

VI

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS

|ROM this time on, he regarded his
life and its powers as a trust to be
enlarged, controlled and adminis-
tered diligently, savingly, and solely
for others. From his retirement for
communion with his own soul and with his
Maker, he came out into the open of a new
life and surrendered himself wholly to the
duty before him as he saw it. He knew the
mighty energy of money, and he would gather
and rightly direct it. But it went hard with
him that day, to let go the dream of leisure
and hope of travel and study, to go back again
to a desk and an office, to the labor he had laid
aside as he thought forever, when he had no
personal wants to serve. No one but himself
knew that in the Court of Conscience, he was
passing upon himself a life sentence.

He had a definite purpose now, and he set
himself to daily work to carry it out in the
most practical way. Unfaltering in his de-
es

66 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

termination and without vagueness or flabbi-
ness, he concentrated and consecrated himself
to his self-chosen task. It was noticeable to
his old friends that a new light was in his eyes.
He practically withdrew himself from the
world at large and took long walks of inquiry
into existing benevolences, with a view of
helping them rather than multiplying organi-
zations. Just as he had done on Market
Street, when in business, in examining into
the character, capacity and actualities of busi-
ness firms that sought to buy goods of his firm
on credit, so did he go into the objects of
charitable and other institutions, the quality
of work, their methods of management, and
the accuracy of their reports and financial
statements.

He would put his finger on the weaknesses
and waste of organizations that directors and
trustees seemed to be ignorant of, and he made
it a rule to leave those which he decided
were sentimentally impractical so severely
unhelped as to call down upon him the con-
demnation of some of his friends, who did not
know the facts about their institutions as well
as he knew them. For hours he would sit

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 67

silent and alone with a small pencil in hand,
and look off at some distant object while he
thought out his problems.

Always economical in his habits, his ex-
penses became smaller. He lived in the
simplest way, dressing more plainly and dis-
pensing with everything he could do without.

At this very time, he was giving away
secretly thousands and tens of thousands of
dollars, covering up his hand so that only two
or three persons would know the source of the
gifts.

During this time and through the fifties,
his wealth grew much more rapidly than he
could wisely distribute it. He never specu-
lated. He paid in full for what he bought
and put it in his boxes to keep until the right
time to sell. First of all, he made himself
thoroughly familiar with all the corporations,
their men and methods of management, and
the possibilities of advancing values. The
hard-headed, thorough business man that he
had always been, held him off from being
drawn into operations through friendship
or sentiment.

He dealt not in vague expectations or by

68 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

promising prospectuses but in the plain actual
facts.

Being known to have cash always on hand,
he was sought for to join the best things being
organized, and almost as constantly the doubt-
ful schemes that wanted the use of his name
to give respectability to proposed operations.

On occasions when invited into investments
and directorates upon a special and lower
basis than other people, he indignantly de-
clined, declaring that to do so would dishonor
him in his own sight and prevent him from
looking his friends in the face.

He made the most exhaustive inquiries
into the situation of everything he thought of
investing in, and after he put his money into
any undertaking, he kept close watch on its
operations and its operators to the extent, some-
times, of becoming a member of its board and
serving as a committee man, in order to give
personal attention to make the returns profit-
able to himself and other stockholders. He
made much money from the study of and in-
vestment in city real estate, in which, by his
foresight, he went ahead of the changes and
revolutions ever going on in city localities,

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 69

buying properties sure to advance and hold-
ing them for a time. His practice with all his
investments was to sell at a fair profit and not
to wait to get all the advance, but let other
people have the chance for a part of it, taking
the money and profit he had made, and rein-
vesting again in another locality to repeat the
turnover in the same way.

There was no jumpy luck in all this, nor
favored knowledge of conditions beyond the
opportunity and reach of other men. It was
his thorough organization of himself to look
for and think over existing conditions, and
the use of plain, common sense in acting
thereon.

He worked hard and long, and in fact
more zealously than in the days he was stor-
ing up the first hundred thousand.

Fifteen years now follow that this modest,
unobtrusive man, with a genius for money-
getting, buried himself contentedly in delving,
digging, mining and storing for the poor and
weak, for whom he had accepted a charge
from his Maker. His body constitutionally
weak, his life wearing thin, confined to the
narrow spaces of an office, his chosen food but

7Q LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

little more than a crust, making one suit last
the usual time of two, and his spirit soaring
higher and higher as he toiled and saved to
make and distribute his gains for humanity,
that they might breathe good cheer and
strength and happiness upon others un-
favored by fortune.

What a lifetime it was, that period from
1 850 to 1 865 ! With hungry mind, he analyzed
the energies of money. He selecting the altars
upon which to lay it. He was constantly sub-
jected to the criticisms, stabs and scorn of
fellow citizens and misinformed newspaper
writers, who regarded him as " the thread-
bare philanthropist." Maligned by those
whose appeals for aid for their charities or
enterprises were unsuccessful, who wished to
deprive him of his liberty to determine where
to place his money, he steadily went on, meek
and silent, all the time carrying on his little
shoulders the hospitals, homes and schools
with which he had loaded himself up for
future aid.

As his friend of many years, the late
Henry C. Townsend, said in 1891, in his
address at the opening of the Williamson Free

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 71

School of Mechanical Trades, of which he
was one of the original trustees :

" When he reached the age of nearly
seventy, his fortune probably amounted to
about $4,000,000; and at that period of his
life, yielding to the impulses of his naturally
kindly and sympathetic nature, keenly alive
and responsive to the claim of all forms of
suffering humanity, and regarding himself as
only a steward of the large fortune he had
acquired by a life of integrity, self-denial, and
intelligent efforts, he began a system of wise,
judicious and liberal distribution of his means,
giving in various directions and for a variety
of purposes, in a broad and catholic spirit,
both money and property, to hospitals,
schools, homes and similar charitable and edu-
cational organizations. The aggregate of his
donations during this period of his life, from
the age of seventy to eighty-six, while not
known during his lifetime, was ascertained
after his decease to have amounted to (inde-
pendent of the endowment of this school)
about $4,000,000, a sum believed to be larger
than that ever given by any one individual in

72 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

his lifetime in this country for benevolent pur-
poses."

This was the result of a gradual mental
process rather than of any sudden outside
influence. However, General Joshua L.
Chamberlain, in his historical sketch of " The
Founding of the University of Pennsylvania
Hospital," suggests that Isaiah V. William-
son's benevolent start was caused by an appeal
made to him, in 1872, for that hospital scheme
by two members of the committee having in
charge the raising of funds from individual
donors. The State Legislature in April, 1872,
granted to the new hospital in West Phila-
delphia, $100,000, " on condition that $250,-
000 in addition should be collected from
other sources, and that at least two hundred
free beds for injured persons should be main-
tained forever " ; and later made other appro-
priations. The City Councils granted five
and a half acres adjoining the university site,
on condition that the new hospital should
furnish fifty free beds for the indigent sick.
Subscriptions were also asked of the public
generally, in sums of $3000 or multiples,
giving each donor " the right to nominate one

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 73

or more free patients in the hospital." This is
what General Chamberlain has to say regard-
ing the visit to the Quaker financier:

" One picturesque incident, at least, arose
in this private subscription. Isaiah V. Wil-
liamson was a man noted for his wealth, but
almost equally for his unwillingness to give
from it. Two members of the committee,
however, one of whom was Dr. William
Pepper (at that time the Provost of the Uni-
versity), with some reluctance, braved his
common reputation, visited him in his dark
little office in an obscure building on a narrow
street (30 Bank Street), and laid their request
before him. He allowed them to talk for
almost an hour, only asking two questions, and
then brought the interview to a close by say-
ing he would think the matter over. In a few
weeks the hospital committee were surprised
to receive from him a subscription of $50,000,
the largest single contribution to the hospital
fund. But, curiously enough, from that time
forward, Mr. Williamson became a liberal
giver to philanthropic objects. He gave
$50,000 more to the University and left $100,-
000 to it in his will, and his office became a

74 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

regular calling place for those interested in
various charities."

This quotation should doubtless be taken
with several grains of salt. How could
General Chamberlain fairly assume to know
what no one knew, but the man himself, as to
his dedication of himself, not in public, a
score of years before that visit to solicit for
the University Hospital? Other assertions
have been made that Williamson gave grudg-
ingly, particularly at that period; but hesi-
tation for careful examination is not the same
as disinclination. One of the editorials in the
Philadelphia papers at the time of his death
declared that " he was seldom a voluntary and
never a cheerful giver" ; that " he was never
a leader, and often not even a follower, in the
movements of the progressive or the philan-
thropic" ; and that if it had not been for " the
ceaseless and wisely directed efforts of sincere
philanthropists who cultivated his friendship
and confidence, the Williamson School would
never have been founded."

This is painfully untrue.

If if could be proved that Mr. William-
son never gave anything spontaneously and

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 75

generously, of his own initiative, it would at
least be to his credit that there was something
in his heart which could respond to definite
appeals, or that he could succeed in overcom-
ing a natural ungenerosity. But the reverse is
true. In numerous instances, his gifts were
not only voluntary, but absolutely secret — as,
for example, in the many gifts which he made
to various charities under the pseudonym of
" Hez," which no one knew stood for him till
after his death.

That certain great-souled people, of whom
he sought counsel, did exert a positive influ-
ence over him in this direction at various
times, and that he appreciated their spirit and
rose to the occasion, is manifest. The chari-
ties of Peter Williamson and his daughter,
Mary, made such an impression on him that
in his will of 1874, it was directed that $10,000
should be left to Mary to assist her in carry-
ing on her charitable work. The same amount
was entered for Mrs. J. Bellangee Coxe, for
the same purpose ; and it is well known that as
Miss McHenry was greatly admired by him
for her unselfish character, fine executive
ability and energy, in founding and carrying

76 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

on the Lincoln Institution, the Educational
Home, and other enterprises for young men;
and, as has been said, some of his first large
gifts were in the direction of her work. It is
plain that the years of money-getting had not
withered his heart.

His long-time friend, William C. Ludwig,
was another who exerted a great influence
over Williamson, both by example and posi-
tive pressure. For many years the philan-
thropist was accustomed to consult Ludwig
more or less regularly regarding benevolent
causes in mind, often not only following his
advice, but going on far beyond his sug-
gestions. As will be seen, this was particularly
so in the matter of the Merchants' Fund.

But whatever the influence, subjective and
objective, which set this great engine of
charity going, the fact remains that the num-
ber and variety of Williamson's gifts in three
or four years, from 1873 to ^76, are simply
bewildering, even with the incomplete records
which we have. Alfred Helmbold, Jr., who
was his private secretary for seven years be-
fore his death, has collected such memoranda
as he could of those years. The benefactions

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 77

amounted to at least $200,000, aside from the
gift to the University Hospital. Mr. Helm-
bold's list is here classified and arranged
alphabetically.

ASYLUMS AND HOMES

Asylum for Relief of Persons Deprived of Use of Their

Reason.
Church Home for Children.

Clinton Street Boarding Home for Young Women.

Foster Home Association of Philadelphia.

Frankford Asylum for the Insane.

Frankford Home for the Insane.

Franklin Reformatory Home for Inebriates.

Home for Incurables.

Home for Infants.

House for Homeless.

House of Refuge.

Howard Institution Under Care of Women Friends.
Lincoln Institution for Soldiers' Orphans.
Newsboys' Home.
Old Men's Home.

Pennsylvania Asylum for Indigent Widows and Single
Women in the District of Kensington.

Pennsylvania Industrial Home for Blind Women.

Philadelphia Home for Incurables.

Temporary Home Association.

Temporary Home for Children.

Union School and Children's Home.

Union Temporary Home for Children.

Western Provident Society and Children's Home of
Philadelphia.

78 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

BENEVOLENT FUNDS AND SOCIETIES

Bank Clerks' Beneficial Association.
Bucks County Association.
Central Employment Association.

Female Association of Philadelphia for the Relief of the

Sick and Employment of the Poor.
Fuel Saving Society of City and Liberties of Philadelphia.
Mercantile Beneficial Association of Philadelphia.
Merchants' Fund.

Northern Association of the City and County of Phila-
delphia for the Relief and Employment of Poor
Women.

Pennsylvania Seamen's Friend Society.
Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals.

Philadelphia Lying-in Charity for Attending Indigent

Females at Their Own Homes.
Philadelphia Protestant Episcopal City Mission.
Philadelphia Society for Employment and Instruction of

the Poor.

Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of

Public Prisons.
Seamen's Fund Society.

Soup Societies — all of the regularly organized ones in

Philadelphia.
Union Benevolent Association of Philadelphia.
Western Association of Ladies of Philadelphia for Relief

and Employment of the Poor.

HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES

Children's Hospital.

Church Dispensary of Southwark.

Episcopal Hospital.

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 79

German Hospital.

Germantown Dispensary and Hospital.

Howard Hospital and Infirmary for Incurables.

Jefferson Medical College Hospital.

Jewish Hospital.

Medico-Chirurgical Hospital.

Northern Dispensary of Philadelphia.

Orthopaedic Hospital of Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania Hospital.

Philadelphia Dispensary.

St. Luke's Hospital, South Bethlehem.

University Hospital.

Women's Hospital of Philadelphia.

COLLEGES, LIBRARIES AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL
INSTITUTIONS

Academy of Natural Sciences.

Cambria Library Association of Johnstown.

Educational Home for Boys.

Haverford College.

Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Industrial Home for Girls.

Library Company of Fallsington.

Mercantile Library.

Philadelphia School of Design for Women.
Swarthmore College.
University of Pennsylvania.
West Philadelphia Institute.
Women's Medical College.
Yardleyville Library Company.

This is undoubtedly an imperfect show-
ing, for Williamson was always as reticent

8o LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

as possible regarding his gifts. Informa-
tion had to be gathered from one source and
another after his death. To many of these
causes the contributions were fixed annual
subscriptions, which were later found to have
been permanently provided for in his will of
1874, according to certain definite percent-
ages, thus revealing his accurate knowledge
of the details and relative needs of certain
benevolent organizations at that time. As an
illustration of this, the Mercantile Beneficial
Association received annually not less than
$600 by the provisions of the will.

It is possible that Williamson came across
the saying a member of Parliament once
shrewdly uttered, out of personal observation
as one of the laboring class, that " charity
creates much of the misery it relieves, but
does not relieve all the misery it creates." It
is evident he held a similar opinion ; and tried
to avoid unwise, careless, thoughtless methods
that have often done more harm than good.
He seems to have preferred, usually, to con-
tribute to the organized city charities rather
than to the special local work of the churches.
One of his chief reasons, according to Mr.

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 81

Helmbold, was that " the needs of the suffer-
ing could be better investigated and under-
stood by those having charge of these matters
than from his personal efforts."

On the other hand, it is true that in
numerous instances he gave secret personal
attention to individual cases of need, or did
this through his secretary — who was fre-
quently his almoner in charitable deeds never
publicly known. It seems to be true, also,
that in a quiet way he helped many a feeble
church in gifts. This is borne out by an
exclamation known to have been made during
the last year of his life, when told that two
well-dressed ladies, coming in a carriage, had
called at his office and asked for a contribution
toward an expensive altar rail in a rich
church :

" Rich church, eh? Well, I've got no use
for rich churches. When I give money, I
don't give to rich churches; I give to strug-
gling ones."

In that first period of systematic giving in
the '70's he made his gifts chiefly from the
income of his investments, and as a rule
pledged money only as he had an expected

82 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

income to meet his promise. At times many
of his valuable securities were not producing
incomes, though increasing in value; and in
fact the increase of his four millions, at
seventy years, to three times as much in the
last fifteen years of his life, was largely due to
this great appreciation of values in capital
stocks, bonds and real estate. 9

As an illustration of his method of giving
away his income, it may be mentioned that
about 1868 or 1870 he owned several lots or
squares in the southwestern part of Philadel-
phia, which he was interested in building up.
This section was in the neighborhood around
Carpenter, Christian, Reed, Dickinson, Mt.
Holly and Lingo Streets, between Fifteenth
and Twentieth. As these properties were
sold, he made advances to insure the erection
of buildings, and reserved yearly ground
rents, according to a local Philadelphia
custom now not so much in vogue as formerly.
Of those hundred or more ground rents nearly

* Before he died he had amassed a fortune of $20,000,000, of
which he disbursed $5,000,000 during his lifetime to various
charities. In his offerings it was sufficient for him that they
were deserving and commanded his confidence, and public men-
tion of his contributions was a matter of great dislike, for, of
all things, he especially avoided notoriety.

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 83

all were given to various charities during his
lifetime.

While Williamson's charities were usu-
ally bestowed secretly, coming as something
of a surprise to the beneficiaries, there
were numerous occasions when he openly
made them conditional, in order to get other
people stirred up. On one occasion, for in-
stance, when he was asked to give $10,000 to
the Home for Incurables — to which he had
given before, and in which he was deeply in-
terested — for the purpose of purchasing addi-
tional ground adjoining the Home, he replied
to the committee that if they would raise
$5000 from other people by a certain time, he
would give the other $5000. This was accom-
plished, and thus the circle of the Home's
friends and supporters was enlarged.

From the time that it became publicly
known that he was a large giver he was, of
course, beset on all sides by appeals, and his
mail brought begging letters from all over
the world, some of them absurd or impudent
— the common experience of men and women
known to be wealthy or generous-minded.
Many of these requests, both distant and

84 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

local, could only be ignored. But to any
straightforward and apparently worthy cause
or person, he would listen patiently and
sympathetically, generally asking a few pene-
trating questions, and usually, without giving
aid at the time, would close the interview by
saying: " I will look into the matter."

This was no idle answer, intended only to
get rid of suppliants. It was a promise which
he fulfilled. He " looked into the matter "
with surprising thoroughness; and if the
decision was favorable, the amount of his gift
was usually surprising, also.

This desire to get the facts at first hand
and to decide for himself is illustrated in a
characteristic story told of him. On one
occasion he had contributed to a certain cause
in which a lady was deeply interested. She
said to her father that while it was a generous
gift, it was insufficient to accomplish her pur-
pose, but she was afraid to ask again. Her
father suggested that she should write a letter
and he would deliver it. But Williamson
was not satisfied with that; he asked that the
daughter should come to him; he wanted the
story of need from her own lips, and also

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 85

wished to reassure her of his confidence in
the work. When she went away from his
dingy office, she carried an additional check
for $10,000.

The circle of his sympathy was wide. Any
great calamity stirred his heart; but also the
poverty and distress of the humblest peddler
who strolled into his office with a basket of
cheap notions on his arm, from whom he
would always buy something — perhaps a spool
or two of thread, a paper of pins, or a stove
lifter — odds and ends which he subsequently
gave away when occasion offered. He was
invariably strongly moved to help the man
who was trying to help himself, however
humble the effort. But for mere beggars, low
or high, he had little sympathy.

Among the many benevolences of the last
decade or so of Williamson's life a few stand
out with special boldness on account of the
large sums given while he was living. Among
these the University of Pennsylvania at one
time received a gift of fourteen acres of city
property valued at $200,000; the Episcopal
Hospital ten acres valued at $75,000 ; and the
Woman's Hospital and College authorities

86 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

thirty-eight acres in the southern section of
the city, supposed to be worth more than
$ioo,ooo. Besides the $50,000 or so given to
Swarthmore College several years before, the
sum of $80,000 was added in 1888, which the
trustees used in founding " the I. V. William-
son Professorship of Civil and Mechanical
Engineering."

Of the larger charities, also, were the
Mercantile Library, the Merchant's Fund,
and the House of Refuge. His active interest
in the Mercantile Library dated back to 1873
or earlier, when one of the directors who knew
Isaiah V. Williamson approached him on the
subject of giving $10,000 to establish a " Wil-
liamson Fund," the annual income to be
used in the purchase of new books of interest
to mechanics and tradespeople, with William-
son's name printed on the inside label as the
donor, thus keeping his generosity before the
patrons of the Library. He replied that the
notion was "all rubbish," and he could not
allow his name to be used in that manner.
The disappointed director gave it up and
went home. However, Williamson " thought
it over " in his usual way, and in a few days

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 87

informed the director that he would do a little
something for him. Deeds were turned over
to the Library, embracing valuable timber
and coal lands in Clinton County, worth
$35,000 or more; and later, other gifts of
ground rents brought his contribution up to
$50,000. Thus eventually, whether he would
or no, the " Williamson Fund " was estab-
lished in the Mercantile Library.

As to his interest in the Merchants' Fund,
no doubt Ludwig had a good deal to do with
that. He was one of its organizers in 1854,
and its president from 1869 till his death in
the latter part of 1889; and its purpose was
very near his heart — to aid fellow-merchants
who had met with reverses and were in dis-
tress. It was natural that Williamson, who
valued so highly Ludwig's judgment in benev-
olences, should sympathize with him in this
manner, especially as he had himself passed
through the struggles and anxieties of a city
merchant. In the early '70's, accordingly, he
joined with others in various subscriptions to
this fund, his own amounting to about $15,000.
Feeling the importance of a largely increased
permanent endowment, he worked actively to

88 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

get others aroused on the subject; and not
meeting with the response he desired, he
simply did it himself — a little later conveying
to the association property on Chestnut Street
above Seventh, worth $85,000 or more, and
making his total subscription to the fund
$100,000 at the lowest valuation. Among the
managers and ardent friends of the fund in
those days was Edmund A. Souder, one of
Williamson's young business contemporaries
when he first came to Philadelphia.

Regarding the gift of $105,000 to the
House of Refuge, there are some especially
interesting features. In one of the semi-official
accounts of the history of that institution the
date of his gift is entered as February 2, 1889,
only a month before his death. But the sub-
scription seems to have been made during the
preceding year, in three payments of $35,000
each. The special occasion was the removal
of certain departments of the institution from
the city to the country, in order to erect new
buildings and establish the " cottage " system
at Glen Mills, giving the boys more freedom,
and so far as possible doing away with the
prison-like methods of former years. The idea

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 89

had so appealed to William Massey, the
wealthy brewer, that he had recently sub-
scribed $100,000 to it. Williamson must have
been familiar with the history of the insti-
tution from the first, as it was organized in
1 826, a few months after he came to Philadel-
phia, and have known the long devotion to it
of Isaac Collins, Alexander Henry, and their
children from the first. But his attention had
been particularly drawn to it for some time,
leading him to make a careful study of the
whole situation, and his interest in the House
of Refuge became so great, through his
examination of its past history and future
plans, that he resolved to give it a lift whether
or no. Meeting Massey a little later, their
conversation is said to have been something
like this:

"They tell me," remarked Williamson,
" that you have given a hundred thousand to
move the House of Refuge boys out into the
country. That is good. There is something
in nature to heal the diseased mind as well as
the diseased body."

" That is true ; but it is not enough. What

9Q LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

will you give? " asked Massey, in his whole-
hearted way.

" I thought about it all last night," said
Williamson. " The forlorn boy lies close to
my conscience; and I have promised them a
hundred thousand or so."

" Bless my heart! Have you? Come and
take lunch with me."

" Thank you, Mr. Massey, but I have my
lunch here in my pocket."

During those years — the 'yo's and onward
— Williamson's old affection for the country
relatives and country life was as warm as ever,
manifesting itself in various ways as occasion
offered.

In 1 875 he came to the rescue of the Library
Company at Fallsington, the village of his
early years. The Library was incorporated
in 1802 — the year preceding his birth — with
thirty-five shareholders. It began with 138
volumes, some of which are still in service.
As a boy and young man he must have made
use of the Library frequently. It had been
maintained after a fashion ever since, but its
scope was very limited and in the early '70's

PHILANTHROPY HIS REAL BUSINESS 91

its life seemed flickering. The organization
was barely kept alive through the courage
and perseverance of three or four individ-
uals. One of the villagers kept the cases of
books at his house, and acted as librarian, with
a trifling fee. But Williamson put new life
into the enterprise by giving $5000 as an
endowment fund, of which the interest was
to be used in purchasing new books. This
was made conditional upon the capital stock
being increased to at least one hundred paid-
up shares providing for the maintenance and
incidental expenses of the Library. The result
was that the organization took on a new and
larger life. Public enthusiasm was aroused.
A library building was erected four years
later, to which Williamson contributed one-
half the expense. At the time of the Library's
centennial, in 1902, there were more than
seven thousand volumes listed in its catalogue.

Williamson also had a part in the forma-
tion of the Bucks County Association, in 1876,
in which Judge Edward M. Paxson, Amos
Briggs, John O. James, Theodore C. Search,
and John Stackhouse were officers of the first

92 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

Board of Managers, and of which many
eminent Philadelphians, who had come from
Bucks County, became members. The pur-
pose, besides providing a suitable rallying
place during the Centennial Exhibition, was
to perfect a permanent organization, with
rooms and social features, and to afford what-
ever encouragement and protection it might
to young men settling down in the business of
the city.

VII

DEVELOPMENT OF THE WILLIAMSON
SCHOOL IDEA

|S SEEN in preceding chapters, there
had been notable indications for many
years of Williamson's peculiar interest
in charitable efforts for boys and girls.
Foreign institutions of that sort had
greatly appealed to him while abroad, before
he was forty, and all through his bachelor
life these feelings seem to have gathered
power. It has been noted how the Lincoln
Institution for soldiers' orphans was one of
the first benevolences to which he contributed
largely. Other asylums and educational insti-
tutions for children later received his sub-
stantial aid. In the management of some of
them he bore an active part. In the work of
the Educational Home for Boys, for instance,
he was a member of the Board of Council, a
body of representative men giving counsel
and aid to the Board of Managers, all of
whom were women; and when it was pro-

93

94 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

posed to start a girls' department of the same
institution, he became a member of the com-
mittee appointed to received contributions to
that end. He was a member, also, of the
Board of Trustees of the Union School and
Children's Home. These and other official
duties were quite likely to have increased his
knowledge of the need and intensified his feel-
ing; but to go deeper, they were really varied
forms of expression of a feeling that had
existed for years, of which one of the latest
and most expressive was his study of the
House of Refuge conditions and his gift to it
of $105,000 during the last year of his life.

There is abundant evidence, also, that boys
who were dependent on themselves were
always especially on his mind. Mr. Helm-
bold says that he often revealed his deep in-
terest in them by some sudden exclamation
like this: " I see so many boys on the street!
I think if they had better opportunities they
might make good men !" And to a reporter of
the Philadelphia Times he said : " It was
seeing boys, ragged and barefooted, playing
or lounging about the streets, growing up
with no education, no trade, no idea of use-

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 95

fulness, that caused me to think of founding
a school where every boy could be taught
some trade free of expense." He talked with
his intimate friends — Mr. Lewis, Mr. Lud-
wig, Mr. Wanamaker and others — about " the
boys " many times, often with emotion that
was near to tears.

And he was equally emphatic in his oft-
expressed opinion that the abolition of the
apprentice system was one of the greatest
mistakes of contemporary society.

The thought of founding some sort of an
institution for boys came as early as " the
fifties " into his mind. Any doubt on this
score would disappear after reading the brief
preamble to the Foundation Deed presented
to the Trustees of the Free School of Me-
chanical Trades, December 1, 1888. Four
times within a few paragraphs he asserts and
reasserts this fact :

" The subject of the training and edu-
cation of youth to habits of industry and
economy, and the importance of their learn-
ing trades, so that they may be able to earn
their living by the labor of their hands, has
for a long time received my careful attention."

96 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

— " For nearly thirty years I have carefully
considered this subject, with the intention at
the proper time of founding and endowing a
free institution." — " The time has now arrived
at which I can put my long cherished inten-
tion into effect, and devote and dedicate to
the object a sufficient fund out of means which
have been saved and accumulated for the
purpose." — " Now, know all men by these
presents, that I, Isaiah V. Williamson, of the
City of Philadelphia, merchant, in order to
carry out the object I so long have had in view,
in the hope of supplying a long-felt want in
the community, and with this intention and
design of founding and endowing in perpetuity
an institution to be known as ' The William-
son Free School of Mechanical Trades,' and
hereinafter designated as the School, do here-
by make, constitute, and appoint my friends,
John Baird, James C. Brooks, Lemuel Coffin,
Edward Longstreth, William C. Ludwig,
Henry C. Townsend, and John Wanamaker,
the Trustees."

It seems that Williamson's thought, at one
time, had been to provide for such a school
by will, to be organized after his death; and

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 97

to that end Mr. Helmbold made a " first
rough draft " of a codicil, the manuscript of
which he has preserved. It bears marks of
dictation, with some of Williamson's charac-
teristic forms of expression. Here we find
his scheme in its formative stage, only partly
worked out, but of much the same nature as
the well rounded-out foundation deed into
which it developed. He uses the term
" managers " instead of the later " trustees."
His opening paragraph raises a complaint
afterwards omitted, regarding trades unions :
" The subject of the proper training and edu-
cation of the young to habits of economy and
industry, whereby they shall become self-
sustaining, has received my careful attention ;
and the unwarrantable position taken to some
extent by Trades Unions and other Labor
organizations in regard to apprenticeships —
assuming as they do, arbitrarily, to control
and limit the number that shall be admitted
to learn a trade — is fraught with great danger
to the community, in compelling the young
to grow up in habits of idleness, leading at
times to vice and crime."

Three features of the manuscript notes,

98 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

however, are of special interest, showing that
Williamson then entertained the idea of
an institution for both sexes, the girls to be
trained, among other things, in cooking and
all forms of plain housekeeping; that the title
then in mind was the " Institute (or School)
for the Mental and Industrial Education of
the Young"; and that four million dollars
was the amount he was first planning to be-
queath, the institution to be " organized as
soon as practicable " after his death.

But gradually, as Williamson revolved
his great purpose after the cautious man-
ner of years, looking at it repeatedly from
all sides, the desire grew upon him to get the
scheme started in his lifetime. The counsel
of some of his friends confirmed him in this.
His attorney, Franklin B. Gowen, formerly
President of the Reading Railroad, and a
friend in whose judgment he had the greatest
confidence — was one of those who urged him
not to wait, arguing among other things that
if he carried out his purpose while living a
collateral inheritance tax would be saved.
And there were the examples of other men,
either as warning or inspiration — the long

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 99

controversy over the will of Samuel J. Tilden,
illustrating with peculiar force the old story
of the uncertainty of bequests ; or the experi-
ence of Peter Cooper, on the other hand, who
for years had the pleasure of seeing Cooper
Institute thronged with young men and women
who were being fitted, through his bounty,
for lives of useful industry. Men before
Isaiah Williamson, and men who have come
after him, have distributed a large part of
their wealth while living; and who can say
that his example may not have played some
part in shaping the later policy of such men
as Andrew Carnegie, with his free libraries
scattered all over the land; of Anthony J.
Drexel, with the Drexel Institute of West
Philadelphia; of P. A. B. Widener, with the
Home for Crippled Children, on Old York
Road; of Jacob Tome, with the splendid
school since located at Port Deposit, Mary-
land ; and of others like them, far and near.

Mr. Helmbold, in consequence of his close
relation to Isaiah Williamson as private sec-
retary, knew something of the mental process
that had gone on, and of the changed decision
in favor of a life-time foundation. Realizing

ioo LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

also, more than those who were not in hourly
contact with him, his increasing feebleness,
the secretary's fear was that it might be put
off, until it was too late, and for a year or
more, so far as he felt at liberty to do so, he
had been urging the aged philanthropist to
immediate action of some sort. One day,
scarcely half a year before his death, William-
son returned to the office enfeebled after a
slight illness, and brought up the subject
again, asking his secretary:

" Who do you think would be a good man
to take up his matter? "

Mr. Helmbold's relief can be imagined.
As he expressed it: "I jumped at anybody."
Various names were mentioned, showing how
definitely that Williamson had been thinking.
But the imperative thing was to get the project
going at once.

From that time it was pushed forward
with all speed. Within a few weeks the
trustees were selected and their consent to
serve gained; the two millions of securities
were picked out; and the foundation deed
was drawn up in all its minute details. This
paper, however, bears no marks of haste. Any

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 101

intelligent man, reading it for the first time,
must confess that it is an extraordinary docu-
ment, striking out here and there on new lines,
with nothing similar for a pattern. Aside from
legal phraseology that the attorney necessarily
gave to it in its final form, the individuality
of the donor stamps it throughout, in pro-
cesses of thought, forms of expression, and
completeness of detail. In its original
pamphlet form it fills some thirty octavo
pages. Following the preamble stating its
purpose, the name of the school, the appoint-
ment of the trustees and the fiscal trustee —
(the Pennsylvania Company for Insurances
on Lives and Granting Annuities), is a
schedule of the securities transferred, capital
and preferred stocks in banks, railroads and
navigation companies, insurance and indus-
trial companies, having a par value of
$1,596,000, and later appraised at about
$2,100,000; directions are then given for that
appraisement at their market value, and a
division of the total sum into two parts, one-
fifth for a building fund and four-fifths for an
endowment fund, the securities " most readily
and advantageously salable " to be set aside

102 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

for the building fund ; also regarding the use
and investment of those funds, and of accre-
tions by income or future bequests; the
purchase of a site, and the erection and out-
fitting of buildings for the school ; the employ-
ment of teachers and helpers; the conditions
of admission of scholars, and their obligations,
care, training, discipline, and records of
achievement after leaving the school ; closing
with provisions for public annual reports of
" the operations " of the school, for filling
vacancies in the Board of Trustees, and for
incorporation if so desired. The core of this
document, however — its peculiar and original
feature — is of course the part which outlines
the nature of the School, as follows :

" C. I direct that the said School shall be known and
designated as ' The Williamson Free School of Mechani-
cal Trades.'

" D. The Trustees shall employ from time to time,
at proper compensation to be fixed and established by the
Trustees, competent officers, teachers, instructors, agents,
mechanics, workmen, and servants to take charge of the
said School, and to feed, clothe, educate, and instruct in
trades as hereinafter provided all who may be admitted as
scholars to the School.

" E. When the School is prepared to receive scholars
the Trustees shall from time to time receive and admit to

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 103

the School as scholars as many able-bodied and healthy
young male persons of good moral character, of such ages
between sixteen and eighteen years, as may from time to
time be determined by the Trustees, as in the opinion of
the Trustees the extent, capacity, and income of the
School will provide for. Preference shall be given, in the
admission of scholars: First, to those born in the city of
Philadelphia ; second, to those born in the county of Bucks,
State of Pennsylvania ; third, to those born in Montgomery
or Delaware Counties, Pennsylvania; fourth, to those
born elsewhere in Pennsylvania; fifth, to those born in
the State of New Jersey; sixth, to those born else-
where in the United States. And in all cases, other things
being equal, in the order of preference, the preference shall
always be given to the poor. But I especially direct that
no scholar who has been properly admitted with reference
to the order of preference, shall thereafter be displaced to
make way for any later or subsequent applicant who may
be higher in the order of preference hereinabove directed
to be observed. And the decision of the Trustees as to
the number of scholars to be admitted, and as to the con-
flicting claims of any or all rival candidates for admission,
shall be final and conclusive upon all parties. All scholars
admitted to the School shall be bound as indentured
apprentices to the Trustees, by their parents or guardians
or other competent authority, for such respective periods
as the Trustees may from time to time determine: Pro-
vided, That no indenture shall be for less than three years
nor extend beyond the minority of the scholar.

" F. All scholars admitted to the School shall be fed
with good, wholesome food ; plainly, neatly, and comfort-
ably clad, and decently and fitly housed and lodged. They
shall also, if in the opinion of the Trustees they have

104 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

not been sufficiently educated before their admission, be
thoroughly instructed and grounded in the rudiments of
a good common-school English education, embracing spell-
ing, reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography,
history, particularly of the United States, and also such
of the natural and physical sciences and lower mathe-
matics as in the opinion of the Trustees it may be impor-
tant for them to acquire, to fit themselves for the trades
they are to learn. In describing this course of English
education I do not intend to make it obligatory that all
the branches I have named shall be taught, or that those
not named shall be excluded, nor do I intend that any
one fixed or established course shall be taken by all the
scholars, I leave all this to the discretion of the Trustees,
but I request that they shall at all times bear in mind the
fact that the main object I have in view is to train young
men to mechanical trades, so that they may earn their
own living, and that while the acquisition of any branches
of an English education which may be of aid to them in
their several trades is necessary and important, any higher
or advanced knowledge which might render them dis-
satisfied with or unfit for their employments is unnecessary
and may be disadvantageous. I expressly direct that each
and every scholar shall be compelled to learn and be thor-
oughly instructed in one good mechanical trade, so that
when they leave the School on the completion of their
indentures they may be able to support themselves by the
labor of their own hands.

" I leave to the discretion of the Trustees the selection
of the several kinds of mechanical trades to be taught, and
the determination of the particular one that shall be taught
to and acquired by each scholar, but I particularly desire
that the taste, capacity, intelligence, and adaptability of

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 105

each scholar be ascertained and considered before assign-
ing him to any particular trade. Among the trades which
may be taught are those of baker, blacksmith, bricklayer,
butcher, cabinet-maker, car-builder, carpenter, carriage-
maker, coppersmith, the crafts of constructing, manag-
ing, and repairing electrical appliances and apparatus,
foundryman, gas-fitter, gold-beater, harness-maker, hatter,
locksmith, machinist, marble-mason, moulder, painter,
paper-hanger, pattern-maker, plasterer, plumber, printer,
saddler, shoemaker, steam engineer, slater, stone-cutter,
stonemason, tailor, tinsmith, tiler, turner, wheelwright,
and many others. In mentioning these several trades I do
not intend to make it obligatory upon the Trustees to
teach all of them, nor do I intend to exclude any of those
which are not mentioned, and I authorize the Trustees to
the extent that the cultivation, care, and adornment of the
lands and grounds connected with the School will admit,
to instruct such of the scholars as show taste and capacity
for the occupation, in the art of farming and gardening,
or either.

" I desire and direct that the moral and religious train-
ing of the scholars shall be properly looked after and
cared for by the Trustees, but that there be no attempt by
the Trustees at proselytism among the scholars, and no
favoritism shown by the Trustees to any particular sect
or creed. I especially direct that each scholar shall be
taught to speak the truth at all times, and I particularly
direct and charge as an imperative duty upon the Trustees
that each and every scholar shall be thoroughly trained in
habits of frugality, economy, and industry, as above all
others the one great lesson which I desire to have impressed
upon every scholar and inmate of the, School is that- in
this country every able-bodied, healthy young man who

io6 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

has learned a good mechanical trade, and is truthful,
honest, frugal, temperate, and industrious, is certain to
succeed in life, and to become a useful and respected
member of society.

" I desire and direct that the physical training of the
scholars shall be carefully attended to, that they shall have
proper exercise and recreation, so that so far as such a
result can be brought about by training and care, each
one may grow up with a sound mind in a sound body.

" I direct that the boarding, lodging, clothing, educa-
tion, instruction in trades, and all other advantages to be
derived by the scholars under this deed, shall in all respects
be gratuitous, and that under no circumstances shall any
charge be made to any scholar for the same, or any fees, re-
wards, or other compensations be accepted by the Trustees
from or on account of any scholar.

" G. If, in the opinion of the Trustees, any scholar
should become incompetent to learn or master a trade,
or become intractable or insubordinate, or be guilty of
vice or crime, he may be expelled from the School by the
Trustees, and I direct that all indentures shall be so drawn
as to permit this to be done. I particularly direct that
the decision of the Trustees as to whether a scholar de-
serves expulsion under this article G shall be final and
conclusive upon the subject. And I further direct that
the Trustees, by and with the consent of the other party
to any indenture, and of the scholar, may cancel the
indentures of any scholar for any reason which in the
judgment of the Trustees is good and sufficient.

" H. All scholars who have not been previously ex-
pelled, or whose indentures have not been canceled as
provided for in article G shall leave the institution as
scholars and cease to be the recipients of its benefits on

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 107

the completion of the periods of their several indentures.
But nothing in this article contained shall be construed
to prevent the Trustees from employing as agents, teachers,
instructors, workmen, or in any capacity, any scholar who
has served his full time in the School and has left the
same with a good character. And the Trustees may in
their discretion provide for such a system of money
premiums and rewards dependent upon good character
and proficiency as shall enable those of the scholars
entitled to its benefits to receive from the Trustees, when
they leave the School at the full expiration of their inden-
tures, a sum of money not exceeding in the aggregate fifty
dollars to any one scholar, which sum of money shall be
paid by the Trustees out of any of the moneys received by
them as income of the School."

Aside from the deed of trust Isaiah Wil-
liamson repeatedly expressed his views, less
formally but no less clearly, by letter or in
conversation. In a letter dated December 13,
a copy of which was sent to each Trustee, the
founder said : " I have thought it proper and
fitting that, at the beginning of the undertak-
ing, I should bring to your attention my own
views about the details of the establishment
and the management of the School, and sub-
mit for your consideration some suggestions
of my own, which have been the result of
patient and careful consideration of the sub-
ject which is now committed to your hands."

io8 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

He then mentions his preferences in regard to
a site; suggests that it would be well not to
bother themselves about the question of build-
ings until the location has been finally chosen ;
advocates the " Home Life " method for the
School ; suggests that farm buildings on what-
ever property purchased should be utilized,
if possible; and the boys might be set at work
at once, making bricks or quarry stone on the
place, for new buildings ; that the erection of
a large central building with lecture rooms
and the like, might be deferred " until it is
demonstrated that the School will be a suc-
cess, and until the number of inmates is
sufficient to justify the expenditure"; and
gives his opinion that it would be well to
locate the School near some flourishing village
or town, where the boys could attend churches
of different denominations, according to their
preferences. " I have prepared this letter,"
he says in conclusion, " with no intention of
controlling your own judgments upon the
various matters touched upon." The reasons
he gives for the " Home Life " idea are of
special interest:

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 109

" I am decidedly in favor of what is called ' Home
Life,' as distinguished from that of one large institution;
and, from all I have read and reflected upon the subject,
I think the advantages of the former System are as follows :

" 1. The boys will be under better moral control by
being inmates of small homes and having the advantages
of home life.

" 2. It avoids the necessity of large structures, and the
consequent temptation to erect imposing buildings and
make an architectural display.

" 3. It enables you to feel your way, and to provide
from time to time only such buildings as can readily be
filled by scholars; whereas, if the other plan of one large
institute is adopted, there might be a much larger expendi-
ture made than could actually be required for those who
apply for admission."

The seven trustees chosen by Williamson
were not only men of demonstrated ability in
large affairs, but belonged to his circle of
friends.

John Baird was a successful and wealthy
marble merchant, who had begun with hard
work, polishing marble by his own toil in the
cellar of his building on Ridge Avenue, and
had a wide practical knowledge of the field
of mechanical trades. At this time he was
President of the City Bank.

no LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

James C. Brooks, as president of the
Southwark Foundry and Machine Company,
also contributed a valuable technical knowl-
edge. Though the youngest man on the
Board — forty-five at that time — he had had
large experience as an iron-worker, was
known for remarkable executive ability, and
was an intimate friend of Longstreth as well
as of Williamson.

With Lemuel Coffin, Williamson had
close business relations in the early days of
the drygoods business, his great abilities
eventually admitting him to partnership in
the firm that had been Williamson, Burroughs
& Company; and at this time he was head of
the drygoods firm of Coffin, Altemus & Com-
pany, a vestryman of Holy Trinity Church,
and devoted to church work.

Edward Longstreth's acquaintance with
Williamson had not been so long as that of the
other trustees, but he was a special friend of
Mr. E. Y. Townsend, through whose recom-
mendation and influence he consented to
serve. He had a machine-shop experience to
contribute, from the time he started as an

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA m

apprentice in the Baldwin Locomotive Works
until he became the General Manager and
a partner — on physician's order retiring in
middle life, with a fortune.

William C. Ludwig, as already noted, had
been closely associated with Williamson for
many years in charitable work; also in busi-
ness in former years, and on the corporation
boards of various railroads. He began life as
a compositor on a newspaper in Reading,
where he was born. Like Williamson, on
attaining his majority, he went to Philadel-
phia, started in drygoods on Third Street,
and retired with a fortune at about the end of
the Civil War. Later he busied himself in
various banking, insurance and railroad enter-
prises. In social intercourse, or summer out-
ings at Bryn Mawr and elsewhere, they had
often talked over the scheme of the indus-
trial school, Ludwig making many valuable
suggestions.

The only lawyer on the board was Henry
C. Townsend. His brother, E. Y. Townsend,
of the Cambria Iron Company, was one of
Williamson's longest and closet friends, and

112 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

he himself had for many years enjoyed his
friendship and confidence. He was a man of
the quiet sort, rarely seen in Court, having a
lucrative law practice in administering large
estates, and thoroughly conversant with the
real estate business, knowledge which proved
most valuable in the future work of the board.

John Wanamaker had for years been
closely attached to Isaiah Williamson. A
strong affection had gradually developed be-
tween the older and the younger man, reveal-
ing mutual humor, and sympathetic points of
view, especially regarding efforts in behalf of
" the boys." The subject of industrial schools
for boys was the occasion of many and long
conferences together. His confidence in
Wanamaker showed itself in more ways than
one. Sometimes when they sat together at
some board meeting or public assembly, he
would whisper: " Thee will speak for me, as
well as for thyself, John, at this meeting."

A preliminary meeting of the Trustees
was called for November 24, 1888, in this
form:

" A Meeting of the Trustees to be appointed under

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 113

the Deed of Trust from I. V. Williamson, founding and
endowing the Williamson Free School, will be held at
the office of the Cambria Iron Company, South Fourth
Street, on Saturday the 24th of November. You, having
kindly consented to act as one of such Trustees, are
requested to be present at that meeting."

This meeting was mainly devoted to an
informal discussion of the donor's plans, and
some slight changes in the proposed deed of
trust were suggested.

The red-letter day, however, was Decem-
ber 1, 1888, when the Trustees met again with
Isaiah Williamson, at the office of the Cam-
bria Iron Company, to accept the foundation
deed and sign its conditions. The old man
had to be wheeled in from his carriage in a
rolling chair, but his spirit was alert and joy-
ful. Mr. Gowen and Mr. Helmbold were
also present. John Wanamaker presided at
the opening, though declining a nomination
as permanent president. Upon the formal
organization of the board, Mr. Baird was
chosen president, Mr. Brooks treasurer, and,
according to Mr. Williamson's suggestion in
the deed, Mr. Helmbold was selected as sec-
retary. Mr. Gowen read the deed, Mr. Wil-

ii 4 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

liamson's plans were freely discussed, the
necessary papers were signed, and the deed
was ordered printed for the use of the Trustees
and for limited circulation.

Reports of this meeting of course ap-
peared at once in the city papers, and the news
went around the world. A few days later the
Foundation deed, also, was printed in full in
the daily papers. With scarcely an exception
the newspaper reports and editorial comments
were full of appreciation and praise for the
philanthropist, both for the greatness of the
idea and for his purpose to get it partly real-
ized, at least, while living. Here and there,
however, a discordant note was heard. Some
of the Trades Union people were at first in-
clined to criticize the apprenticeship features,
as was to be expected. One editorial writer
asked indignantly why Isaiah Williamson
proposed " to spend all his money upon big,
strapping boys, and let the poor delicate girls
take care of themselves " ; suggested that it
was questionable whether Girard College had
really been a benefit to those raised and edu-
cated in it; and predicted that "Williamson's

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 115

institution " would become " a great pauper
factory instead of a place where boys could
be taught to fight the battle of life success-
fully." Some thought it would be a great
mistake to locate such a school out in the
country, and that it should be in the city at the
very center of industrial enterprises. Others
hailed the quiet, shy, reticent little man as one
of the greatest philanthropists and benefactors
of the race, to be named with such men as
Astor, Cooper, Girard, and Peabody.

The leading journals of other cities all
over the country added their tribute of praise.
The New York Tribune's editorial ended in
this way: "The gift is as sensible as it is
magnificent. It is at least open to doubt
whether the man who makes two colleges
stand where one was enough before has rend-
ered a real service ; but a school like this will
fill a great want, and is a sign of a wise
reaction. The venerable man who lightens
up his closing years with an act of such
splendid magnificence may take some pleas-
ure in the thought that he has illustrated the
existence of the purest motives that can guide

n6 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

the human soul, and has helped to give men a
better opinion of mankind." The New York
Sun, assuming that the total gift to the School
would eventually be from five to fifteen mil-
lions, said : " There never was anything in the
Girard bequest; at its lowest figures it is
fitting, therefore, that there should be nothing
in history like Mr. Williamson's vast gift. It
surpasses in magnitude the aggregate bene-
factions of Peabody ; it exceeds the magnificent
Girard bequest; at its lowest figures it is
larger than the entire endowment of Harvard,
Yale or Columbia; and at its largest limit it
equals the combined wealth of these three
great universities. Yet, with characteristic
modesty, the donor calls his institution a
School. Such figures stagger the imagination.
Only two gifts in human history stand in the
same rank. One is the application by Senator
Leland Stanford of $22,000,000 of his fabu-
lous wealth to found a university; and the
other is the gift of 50,000,000 francs, or
$10,000,000, by Baron Hirsch, the great
Vienna banker, in aid of the Hebrew charities
of Europe."

THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL IDEA 117

While these comments were based on
too large an assumption, it is a fair indication
of the approval expressed throughout the
nation at that time.

VIII

FOUNDING THE WILLIAMSON SCHOOL

HE Board of Trustees took an office
in the Forrest Building, on Fourth
Street, making it their headquarters.
At a meeting held there on Decem-
ber ioth, two committees were ap-
pointed : — one on " Grounds, buildings and
improvements," consisting of Mr. Wana-
maker, chairman, Mr. Longstreth and Mr.
Brooks ; the other on " Finance," consisting of
Mr. Coffin, chairman, Mr. Ludwig and Mr.
Townsend. Mr. Baird, as president of the
Board was ex-officio a member of both com-
mittees. The preliminary work was pushed
forward. In spite of wintry conditions and
the exactions of the holiday season, the first
consideration was to choose a suitable subur-
ban site. The founder's natural preference
for Bucks County, his birthplace, and long
dear to him by many associations, was held in
abeyance to the judgment of the Trustees.

118

FOUNDING WILLIAMSON SCHOOL 119

From the first he sought to give them an
absolutely free hand, whether in large things
or small. He had picked his men, and he
felt that he could safely put on their shoulders
the burden of management. Some of the
Trustees doubted the wisdom of placing the
School in the country. Mr. Baird particularly
favored a city location. But all deferred to
the feeling of the donor. As soon as the
school scheme became known in a general
way, they were, of course, beset with offers of
country estates, and something like two hun-
dred possible sites eventually came under
discussion.

The first actual trip of inspection occurred
toward the end of January, when Isaiah Wil-
liamson accompanied the Trustees in a special
train, to examine the old Sharon Farm in
Bucks County. They were shown every
courtesy by officials of the Newtown Railroad
and local representatives. The farm was seen
to be admirable in many ways, but its distance
of a mile or so from the railroad operated
against it in the final choice. Williamson,
though physically feeble and needing to be

i20 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

assisted in and out of the car, was mentally as
bright and companionable as ever, and re-
sponded quickly to any humorous remark. He
especially enjoyed meeting some old friend9
in the country whom he had not seen for forty
or fifty years.

In the next two or three weeks several
other trips of inspection were made by mem-
bers of the Board, notwithstanding their many
pressing business cares ; for they were resolved
to make no mistakes.

On the 25th of February, 1889, William-
son made another trip with the Trustees — this
time to Delaware County, to inspect the Arm-
strong Farm. But it was not until Friday,
March 1, only six days before his death, that
an inspection was made of the properties near
Media, which several of the Trustees had
seen before, and which were subsequently
chosen. On that trip all the Trustees were
present except Mr. Baird and Mr. Wana-
maker. Mr. Williamson had provided for a
special train and accompanied the party, who
drove over farms in carriages. It was evident
that the site pleased the founder ; but about all

FOUNDING WILLIAMSON SCHOOL 121

that he said, in his non-talkative way, was:
"The place is very nice."

Isaiah Williamson had been for years
peculiarly susceptible to cold. It is not at all
improbable that the effort of this winter trip
was too great, and that it had much to do with
his sudden illness and death six days later.
The last thing that he spoke of before sinking
into final unconsciousness was the Media site,
expressing to H. C. Townsend his approval of
the Trustees in practically agreeing upon it
the preceding day, and bidding Mr. Towns-
end : " Be sure and get from the railroad com-
pany a distinct statement and guarantee in
writing of the privileges they propose to grant
in connection with the school."

This was his last business act, and almost
his last word, spoken smilingly, and eminently
characteristic — the ruling passion strong in
death.

How unexpected and sudden was Wil-
liamson's illness may be seen from a letter
which Mr. Ludwig wrote to him on Monday
of that week, regarding the option on the
Media property:

122 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

Philada., March 4/89.

" My dear Mr. Williamson:

The Board of Trustees will hold a special meeting on
Tuesday (tomorrow) at 12 o'clock, noon; and it is very
desirable that you should be present, and get your views
as to the propriety of purchasing the property near Media,
which, we visited, with you, on Friday last. As our option
to take the property will expire in a few days, and cannot
be extended any further, it is highly important that prompt
action be taken, or lose the opportunity of buying it.

Hoping you will be able to attend the meeting, I
remain,

Very truly yours,

W. C. Ludwig."

On the Monday when this letter was
written, Williamson was at his office on Bank
Street, and there in the afternoon he suffered
from several fainting attacks. He was taken
to his boarding house, and was unconscious
all day Tuesday; he revived somewhat on
Wednesday, and gave that last injunction to
Townsend; and on Thursday morning at
four o'clock (March 7, 1889) he quietly
passed away.

The Trustees had virtually decided for
the Media property at the Tuesday meeting;
and having the further sanction of the found-
er's dying words, they took action at once.

FOUNDING WILLIAMSON SCHOOL 123

Before March had closed they were in posses-
sion of signed papers necessary to secure the
several parts of the site since occupied by the
school buildings.

To understand the value, work and use-
fulness of The Williamson Free School of
Mechanical Trades, a visit to the plant and a
glance at the history of the past nineteen years
is the best educator. One will find abundant
evidence of the founder's wisdom and far-
sightedness; of the practical value of the
apprentice system established in the school,
as an offset in some degree to the lapse of the
old apprentice system. The eminent success
of its graduates and the constant demand for
their services in the world of work prove the
thoroughness and excellence of the education
the schools afford, largely due to the Presi-
dent, John M. Shrigley, who has been in
charge of the school from the first. 10 He was
chosen as one of the secretaries of the Board
of Trustees before Mr. Williamson's death,
and took an active part in the search made
for a suitable site ; he was elected to the school

10 President Shrigley retired April I, 1912, and was suc-
ceeded by Mr. Harry S. Bitting. On April 1, 1922, Mr. James
A. Pratt became the third president.

124 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

presidency later in that year, and was closely
identified with all the work of laying out the
grounds and erecting the buildings; he has
been at the head of the management of the
School in all the particulars of arranging its
curriculum, selecting instructors and helpers,
and providing for the study and work of the
students, and their physical, mental and moral
development from the beginning to this time.

A visitor to the school today may take
a train on the West Chester branch of the
Pennsylvania Railroad to " Williamson
School Station," established on the school
grounds soon after their purchase, in 1889.

Possibly the president, or one of the
officers of the school, would meet him at the
station and first take the visitor over the two
hundred and eleven acres to give him a gen-
eral view of the grounds bounded by the State
Road (or Baltimore Pike) on the north, and
Penn's Grove Road on the south. The original
tract purchased by the Board of Trustees —
and for which they received the deeds May
17, 1889, at a cost of $46,489.80 — consisted
mainly of the homesteads of Hiram Schofield,
the brothers John and Jesse Hibberd, and

FOUNDING WILLIAMSON SCHOOL 125

Caspar W. Grey. This purchase included
several smaller lots bought from other land-
holders, in order to make the school property
virtually square.

Like everyone else the visitor would
quickly concede that it is a beautiful spot —
this gently rolling country with its springs
and water courses, its broad pastures, its wood-
land acres of old oaks and chestnuts, its distant
views of fertile farms, thriving towns — natu-
ral beauties enhanced by wise and not over-
done landscape gardening, winding maca-
damized drives, and an artistic as well as
convenient grouping of the various school
buildings. The great reservoir at the highest
point of the grounds — some 380 feet above
Delaware tidewater — would be noticed. Fed
from native springs, it furnishes a strong
flow of water, by gravity, through pipes to the
buildings standing on somewhat lower levels.

The stranger is shown around through
these school buildings. He is taken into one
of the eight or ten cottages where the young
men live, each cottage having its large living
room and its sleeping accommodations for

126 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

twenty-four students, aside from the family in
charge. While the cottages, like all the build-
ings, are simple and plain architecturally,
they are thoroughly convenient and homelike.
All these students take their meals in the com-
mon dining hall in the main building.

After a glance at the power-house and
laundry, the electric light building and other
minor features of the school plant, a visit
would be paid to the three different shops
where more than two hundred picked young
men spend specified hours of each day in
learning and practicing trades they have
elected to learn. Every new student spends
six months in the wood-working department
before entering upon the course of his chosen
trade. These trades are classified in three
principal divisions: woodworking, including
carpentering, pattern and cabinet making,
house finishing, the construction of roofs,
doorways and the like; building, including
the mixing of mortar and cement, the laying
of stone and brick, the setting of ranges, furn-
aces and boilers, laying tiles and the building
of arches and tunnels; and machinery, includ-
ing the use of tools and appliances, accurate

FOUNDING WILLIAMSON SCHOOL 127

bench work, steam fitting, steam and electrical
engineering, and practical training in how to
run steam and electrical engines or plants.
The students are encouraged to make original
designs in many instances, and to work out
their own drawings. Thus the graduate goes
forth thoroughly versed in the latest and best
methods of his particular trade, as well as
trained to manual dexterity through long
practice.

Coming at length to the main (or Admin-
istration) building, of three stories, built of
granite quarried on the grounds, here are
found the offices and committee rooms; the
dining hall, or " commons," for all the stu-
dents ; the library, with its volumes ; a number
of class and recitation rooms where the stu-
dents pursue their regular three-years' course
in such studies as arithmetic, algebra and
geometry, physical and political geography,
English literature, history and civil govern-
ment, physical science, chemistry, physiology
and hygiene, elocution and vocal music, me-
chanical and free-hand drawing; and on the
second floor the large assembly hall, where
simple chapel services are held every morn-

128 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

ing, lectures and entertainments given from
time to time, and commencements celebrated.

The tablet to Isaiah Williamson's mem-
ory, and the spot where he is buried in the
entrance corridor, would be pointed out, as
well as his portrait, his gold watch, and other
souvenirs of his life's history.

This Administration building was com-
pleted in October, 1 891, and for convenience
and usability has well stood the test of all the
subsequent years. Soon after the purchase of
the land, in 1889, Mr. Wanamaker, Chair-
man of the Building Committee, requested
several Philadelphia architects to submit
plans, all to be equally compensated whether
their work was accepted or not. Of that
group, the architects eventually chosen were
Furness, Evans & Company. Their final
plans for the Administration building, the
shops, and two or three of the cottages were
largely based on suggestions and drawings
offered by Mr. Baird, then President of the
Board of Trustees, as the result not only of his
long practical experience but of special
investigation by Mr. Longstreth and himself
of other schools at the time. Carrying out the

FOUNDING WILLIAMSON SCHOOL 129

founder's idea, Mr. Baird sought to avoid
unnecessary ornamentation, to secure simplic-
ity of construction, and the most perfect
adaptation possible to the work to be carried
on. In these ideas the Board heartily con-
curred. As granite of an excellent quality
had been found on the school tract, it was
decided to use that to a large extent, and
quarries were opened.

Ground was broken on the first of May,
1890. In the presence of several of the
Trustees, architects and contractors, Mr. H.
C. Townsend turned over the first earth with
a shovel, since kept among the school's
trophies. A large force of men was soon put
at work excavating, under the contractor, P.
E. Jeferis, of West Chester. President Shrig-
ley and Lieutenant Robert Crawford (for
several years the enthusiastic and popular
Superintendent of the School) gave the build-
ing their constant personal attention. On
Saturday afternoon, November 8th, the
corner-stone was laid, the Board of Trustees
being represented by Messrs. Townsend,
Longstreth, Brooks and Catherwood. A
copper box in the stone contained a historical

130 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

sketch of the School, and copies of the plans,
the Will and the Deed of Trust, the names and
photographs of all the Trustees, and numerous
writings and newspapers bearing upon the
history of the enterprise. After Mr. Town-
send and Mr. Longstreth had placed the stone
in position, and the latter had made a few
appropriate remarks regarding Isaiah Wil-
liamson and his purpose, the masons cemented
the stone in place, and the visitors inspected
the grounds and such of the buildings as were
then in process of erection.

A year later, in October, 1891, the build-
ing was completed and ready for occupancy.
Long before that time there had been many
applications for admission to the School. Of
these, seventy-two young men, in ages from
fifteen to eighteen, had successfully passed
the entrance examinations, had been enrolled,
and since September, had been engaged in
regular study and work. The other buildings
at this time completed, or nearly so, were the
engine and boiler house, Shop No. 1, the
Superintendent's residence, and three cottages.

The formal opening of the School occurred
on the 31st of October. A special train from

INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS

APPRENTICES' DORMITORIES

FOUNDING WILLIAMSON SCHOOL 131

Broad Street carried a distinguished company
of guests. They assembled in the auditorium
of the Administration building. Samuel B.
Huey, one of the Trustees, presided, and
prayer was offered by B. B. Comegys. The
President of the Board, H. C. Townsend,
gave a long, carefully prepared and interest-
ing address, in which he touched upon the
history of education in Pennsylvania, and
especially of trade schools; the idea of the
Williamson School as developed by the donor
before his death, and the methods of govern-
ing the Trustees; the life and character of
Isaiah Williamson from long and intimate
acquaintance; and an appropriate appeal to
the young men beginning the work of the
School's first class. Other addresses were
made by Professor George F. Baker, of the
University of Pennsylvania, and by John
Wanamaker, the latter paying a personal
tribute of love to Isaiah Williamson and mak-
ing it very clear that this was an historic day
in more ways than one. Following the exer-
cises the guests inspected the new buildings
with great satisfaction.

The first commencement occurred on the

132 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

2d of April, 1894. Again a special train
brought a large company of prominent people,
including the Governor of the State of Penn-
sylvania and the Mayor of Philadelphia. Of
the Trustees, Messrs. Brooks, Catherwood,
Longstreth, Townsend and Wanamaker were
present. Gathered in the decorated audi-
torium, Mr. Wanamaker presided, and made
the welcoming address, after the opening
prayer by the Rev. Dr. H. Clay Trumbull.
Addresses were also made by Governor
Pattison, Mayor Stuart, Stacy Reeves, presi-
dent of the Builders' Exchange, and by two
members of the graduating class. Prizes and
diplomas were distributed to the fifty-nine
graduates, whose average age was nineteen.

This was the forerunner of a series of
brilliant commencements, honored by the
presence of eminent men representative of all
circles of the professions, commerce and trade.
At the second commencment, in 1895, Gov-
ernor Hastings made the principal address,
dwelling upon the history of education in
Pennsylvania; followed by J. Howard Wil-
son, president of the Jackson-Sharp Company,
of Wilmington, who, among other things, said

FOUNDING WILLIAMSON SCHOOL 133

that the graduates of the School could always
find positions in his shops. Addresses in
similar vein were made by D. M. Anderson,
president of the Bricklayers' Protective Asso-
ciation, and George Watson, ex-president of
the Master Builders' Exchange. At the third
commencement, 1896, the addresses were
given by three members of the graduating
class, Louis H. Coxe, Lyndon H. Wheeler,
and Harry Barton. The attendance was very
large in 1897, at the graduation of the fourth
class. Mr. Brooks presided, and Mr. Wana-
maker made an address in which he said, in
urging upon the students to be worthy of their
election, that Isaiah Williamson, if he knew,
would never be satisfied to have a thousand
dollars of his money spent upon a ten-cent
boy, which seems to have been wrought into
the fundamental work of the School. Among
the many distinguished guests present was
Jacob Tome, who had recently given more
than a million of dollars to establish a similar
school at Port Deposit, Maryland. At the fifth
commencement (1898), Hampton L. Carson
was the speaker of the occasion. The next
year, the sixth commencement, 1899, Isaac H.

i 3 4 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

Clothier, of the Board of Trustees, made the
address, among other things taking occasion
to say that " when the history of this School
comes to be written, two names will be
associated side by side — the founder and the
father, Isaiah V. Williamson; the organizer,
the godfather, Edward Longstreth." Again
President Shrigley reported the constantly
increasing demand for the services of the
graduates, a point particularly emphasized
some years later at the tenth commencement,
by John M. Dodge, president of the Link
Belt Engineering Works, of Philadelphia,
who said : " Our firm has employed in the
past several graduates of the Williamson
School, and about the only mistake in the
transaction we can now discover is that we
did not take more of them." This expressed
the general attitude in trade circles. At that
time, President Shrigley again reported that
it was impossible to supply the demand for
graduates; that the first hesitation to employ
them had long since passed away, and for
years the graduates had usually been engaged
before they received their diplomas.

Many letters from graduates are on file,

APPRENTICES AT INSPECTION

A CLASS OF APPRENTICES

FOUNDING WILLIAMSON SCHOOL 135

telling of their successes and expressing grati-
tude to the School and its founder, such as
the following from a machinist: " I am get-
ting along nicely, making $100 per month,
and expect an advance soon. I never can thank
the Williamson School enough for its helping
hand. I fully realize that it was the moulding
and making of my life and character. Such
institutions are scarce in our land, and one
appreciates the good done by ours."

IX

THE LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL

|N THE 7th of March, 1889, Isaiah
V. Williamson journeyed on, and
after many days, the city in which he
lived woke to some realization of
its loss. For eighty-six years he had
lived most of his days in Philadelphia, and
yet few knew or cared to know him until the
last five years of his life. Big men were too
busy with their own affairs and little men too
narrow to do more than point to him as a
shabby, stingy, old man, as if the bent figure
and clothes were all of the man or as though
the quoting of some one word or act of his in-
dicated the whole of the man. The visible is
not always final. Color blindness to character
and worth is much more common than the
ordinary defective vision. There is nothing
simpler than to judge by appearances and
burn a human being at the stake of mistaken
judgment.

From Fallsington Four Corners' Village
136

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL

137

Store to Philadelphia's foremost place as
merchant and philanthropist had been a walk
of upwards of fourscore years.

From the day he came down the Doyles-
town and Old York Road turnpike with his
little bundle of two thousand dollars of sav-
ings, to begin business in Philadelphia, to the
day sixty years later, when he went into the
Fidelity Insurance Trust & Safe Deposit
Company and voluntarily took out of his iron
box two million one hundred thousand dollars
in good securities and handed them over to the
Trust he had created to establish the new ap-
prenticeship School for young men, that they
might ride in his golden chariot of good-will
and fatherliness to success, was a long journey
of self-denial, frugality, patience, and tireless
energy.

It would seem as if every man might, in
his own way, be permitted to study himself
deeply in peace, especially if the key he seeks
and finds is to unlock a gate to the betterment
of the world, in his own day, and the time
to come for those who follow him.

The country boy just entering into the city
today might be another Isaiah V. Williamson,

138 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

with a heart that could do even better work
than he, if free to choose and use without
criticism, the sling and stones he can handle
best to fight his battle.

How much the little man from Bucks
County, low in stature, high in thinking, deep
in feeling, suffered in the forty years of
dignity, patience and silence while he was in
the wilderness of public opinion, nobody
knows. It is only certain that the breath of
his neighbors, by prejudice and carping, kept
his thermometer close to zero. The obituaries,
after the man travelled into the bourne
beyond, might have added fuller, brighter,
longer years to his life and enabled him to do
what he had left undone, if anything like their
contents could have been published for him to
see while he was walking through the street,
conscious of being misunderstood as an unfeel-
ing speculator, if not forgotten altogether.

When the right word is spoken, it will help
and not hurt. The poorest little man that
lives and does something to help his neighbor
is more than the finest bronze statue planted
in the park or on the plaza. It is not the gun,
but the man behind the gun, that counts. It

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL 139

is not the money left by Isaiah Williamson
but the man back of the money that we want
to remember.

All who enjoy such benefactions as this
earnest Quaker, and men like him, have given,
under conditions that can be accepted by self-
respecting young men, should learn to know
their benefactor well enough to accord him
much more honor than the mere politeness of
ordinary gratitude. The man himself can
become a living friend to every young man
who will stop to think that the past had in it
a man who willed his life, his earnings, and
his example to them in the hope that thereby
he may make the way of life easier for them.
Well brought up and cultivated enough to
enjoy the luxuries of life, he called himself off
from them to a life of great labor and frugal-
ity, that he might have the luxury of being
their servant.

He set for all young men a splendid
example in walking as a youth from his
mother's door to the last day of his life on the
straight road of unspotted honor, truthfulness
and highest integrity. A good beginning
makes a good ending.

i 4 o LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

The great musician, Ole Bull, the first
violinist of his time, when playing at the Royal
Court, was summoned after one of his match-
less performances and asked to explain to the
King where he obtained the harmonies he
produced upon his instrument. Ole Bull
replied : " Sire, I got them in the mountains of
my country when I was a boy and I have never
forgotten them." Isaiah Williamson never
for a day of all his long life lost the sweetness,
gentleness, and dignity of his little country
Quaker mother, nor did he forget the stalwart,
rugged manliness, strict honesty, and fairness
of his father.

These stood him in good stead all his life.
He was an upright apprentice and never
filched his employer's time or goods. He
committed thefts neither with his tongue nor
with his hands. His fellow clerks were his
neighbors' sons ; he valued their good opinion
and his influence over them.

He did not let the poison get into the
spring at the beginning of his life. He started
by killing bad habits in the germ, by choking
them in his thoughts when the temptation was
young. Sure enough, the man that picks a

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL

lock or breaks open a cash drawer does it first
in his thoughts before he gets through the
door where it is.

Young Williamson despised shams and
make-believes. He never kept bad company.
If he could not have friends of the best class,
he preferred to be without any.

He planned his life and always worked
towards the object he had before him.

There were no riddles in his life. The
results were answers to tireless thinking and
toiling.

At the end of his life, there were no old
judgments of any kind recorded against him
to be satisfied or documents to be destroyed.

The Honorable Wayne MacVeagh, in an
eloquent address, on the occasion of the dedi-
cation of the Drexel Institute at Philadelphia,
said in commendation of Anthony J. Drexel's
gift, that not a penny of the money given by
Drexel represented ill-gotten gains. These
words, so true of Drexel, are absolutely true
of Isaiah V. Williamson's wealth.

It is to be remembered, too, that all his
money was of his own earning. He had not
inherited any business established by his

i 4 2 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

parents. He was the sole architect and maker
of his own great fortune.

His methods of business were beyond
criticism or reproach. While scrupulously
exact, strictly claiming all that was fairly his
right, he would take nothing more, always
keeping clear of enterprises that bordered on
6harp practices or uncertain foundations,
counting the loss of possible gains as nothing
to the risk of staining his good name.

He had a curious habit of holding up in
his office the propositions that were made to
him. Instead of following an impulse or yield-
ing to importunity for a quick decision, he
deferred his conclusions by saying, " I must
take time to think of this a little further." He
would walk all round the proposition and
look at it from all sides before he would act.

Stradivarius, the greatest of violin-makers
of the olden time, it is said on good authority,
used to go out into the forests and cut pieces
of wood from half a hundred trees. These
pieces he began testing and kept on trying
until the last vestige of sap dried out and the
elasticity of the wood became no longer a
factor. Then he knew the wood. He knew

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL 143

that the violin he made would ring true, not
in the present alone, but in the centuries to
come. He built his violins to sing down
through the ages, true and fine and sweet. He
began right.

So did Isaiah Williamson begin right and,
therefore, he was half done when he began.
He never forgot to complete the details before
he laid down any work he took up.

His life was not a drab monotony of
money-grabbing, as some people supposed.
Without going too much into detail, it will
doubtless be of interest to quote a few para-
graphs from the Philadelphia daily news-
papers, called forth by Isaiah Williamson's
brief sickness, sudden death, the failure to sign
the codicil, and the publication of his will.

The Evening Telegraph said in its editor-
ial columns : " When a Rothschild, a Girard,
or a Williamson dies, it is a public rather
than a private event. No one would here wish
in the least to intrude upon privacy; but we
all know the noble thoughts which have filled
Mr. Williamson's heart, and what he fully
meant to do ; — that being the simple fact, the
desire to know how completely his wishes are

i 4 4 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

to be carried out is entirely natural. A short
time probably will settle all uncertainty, but
in the meanwhile Philadelphians can unite in
a feeling commemoration of one of their most
generous citizens. Nor will the reputation of
his great undertaking be only local. As the
name of Girard is national, so will the name
of Isaiah V. Williamson be familiar all over
the land as one who loved his fellowmen, and
who held exceptional wealth only in trust for
the general good."

" His plan, it will be observed," said the
Evening Herald, " was not a scheme of alms-
giving, as humiliating to honest poverty as it
would be injurious to the indolent, but was
intended to help men to use their own energies
and to aid them in self-reliance and self-
respect. This is the soul of benevolence, and
one of the best means whereby men of wealth
can assist in the onward march of humanity.
The lesson of the life just ended is complete in
itself; but should his design of establishing
his great school be carried on in its fullness,
thousands Who owe him a happier, fuller life
will yet call the name of Williamson blessed."

From several columns in the Philadelphia

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL

Press, this paragraph is fairly representative:
" The general idea of Mr. Williamson was
plainly that he was a miser ; that he lived for
the sake of money-getting, denying himself all
luxuries, and even many comforts; that until
the great project of his industrial school was
formed and the trust deeds given to the
trustees his charities were few; and that he
lived a lonely, crabbed life, loving no one and
loved by only a few. His intimate friends
deny all such assertions, and point to the fact
that he had given nearly a million and a half
to charities and institutions since 1876, as a
complete refutation of such statements. It is
known also that his heart was one of the
tenderest, and his nature genial. He had a
streak of humor in him, but his religious
propensities were never prominent."

The newspapers printed a number of
amusing stories, to illustrate his so-called
" miserliness " in the last few years of his life,
most of which were either untrue or grossly
exaggerated, and insofar as true were merely
eccentricities of what was really a lovable
old age. He was pictured as a little, weasened
old man, walking slowly through the streets

146 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

around Bank and Elbow Lane, with bowed
head and hands behind his back, carrying the
same old umbrella with its years of associa-
tions, and plainly absorbed in deep thought.
It was represented that except on rare
occasions when he put on his old high hat
and " best suit " to go to Clover Hill or else-
where, he was usually seen in the same old
suit, well worn, even shabby and ragged ; and
wearing a disreputable derby hat pulled well
down to his ears, his thin white hair straggling
out under its brim. And if Henry Lewis, or
some other intimate friend, ventured a banter-
ing remark : " I. V., you ought to get a new
suit of clothes ! " he would remark in the same
facetious vein: "What's the matter with
these? Don't they fit me all right? "

He was described in his little dingy back
office, on Bank Street, where he spent thirty-
five years or so, with its plain desk, three or
four old trunks — relics of the European trip
— stuffed with records and papers, its bare
walls, and its general air of being a catch-all
for rubbish — including the very shabby hand-
bag in which the particular papers of the day
were carried back and forth between the office

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL 147

and the trust company's vaults. He was pic-
tured, also, as the strange being who would
go into a restaurant and get a five-cent lunch,
or haggle with the woman at the sandwich
counter to let him have six ten-cent sand-
wiches, one a day for a week, for a lump sum
of fifty cents; and then would hasten back to
his office to sign a check for $5000 or $10,000
for some charity.

In a little cubby-hole of a barber shop on
Elbow Lane, it was said, he used to indulge
in a weekly shave; but when the barber sug-
gested that he needed a haircut, he replied
with infinite gentleness that his niece cut his
hair twice a year. For other sample stories,
it was related that when he was summering at
a hotel in one of the beautiful and fashionable"
suburbs of Philadelphia toward the end of
his life, he used to bring back his soiled linen
wrapped in a newspaper, as he could get his
laundry done a few cents cheaper in town
than at the hotel. Also, that when he found
extortionate bus fare between the hotel and
the station added to the first week's bill, which
he had paid in advance, he refused to ride in
the bus again, and walked back and forth

148 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

every day thereafter, rain and mud to the
contrary notwithstanding. And attention was
called to the fact that, although he was
immensely wealthy, he kept no carriage of his
own until the very last year or two when he
was unable to walk, and that he did not incur
the expense of his own coupe and personal
attendant until he was simply forced to it by
his physical feebleness.

Now, in a way, these very eccentricities of
old age make his character more interesting,
and even more lovable. The simple fact is
that he liked his old clothes ; he liked his old
office furnished with old desks, trunks and
shelves, and having the associations of so many
years. He liked the old umbrella and the
shabby hand-bag. He felt " at home " with
them all, just as he felt at home with his old
friends. And really there is nothing strange
about this. Old people generally feel that
way, in their homes as in their offices, not as
a matter of economy necessarily, but of
personal comfort and ease of mind.

No doubt he disliked conventionalities;
but it is not as if he were slovenly regarding
personal care of himself. Those who were

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL 149

near to him are emphatic on this point. It is
true that in later years Williamson, find-
ing that two meals a day agreed better with
his health, ate usually two or three graham
wafers or a sandwich at noon. Thousands of
middle-aged and elderly men today do the
same thing regularly, not primarily for
economy but for physical and mental vigor.
That is what Williamson thought He
had studied the laws of health in general and
of his own health in particular; and he used
to say what is now being so much emphasized
by scientists, physicians and the people's news-
papers : " People eat too much ! "

As to the reply to the barber about having
his hair cut, even if he ever said it, it is quite
conceivable that he was having his little joke.
All through life ran that vein of gentle, quiet
humor, one of the sure signs of a nature full of
feeling, and without which it is very doubtful
if any man can be truly great, least of all a
philanthropist. Humor lies next to pathos,
and the one who can appreciate the humorous
element in life is the one that most quickly
responds to its pathetic side.

It was this sense of humor that made him

ISO LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

instantly responsive to a good story, or led him
often to express himself in a droll or unex-
pected way. When he was wheeled into the
directors' meetings of the big corporations he
would call out: "A clear track for the
through express!" Mr. Helmbold says that
in the frequent visits to the vaults of the safe
department of a trust company, where he kept
his securities, he would exclaim to the clerks
in charge, as he was slowly wheeled in:
" Make way, make way! Here I come with
my usual impetuosity! " And there was a
pathetic touch in his humorous remarks to H.
C. Townsend toward the end of his life, when
they met one day in the office of the Cambria
Iron Company. Isaiah Williamson had in his
hand a check for $100,000, and when Mr.
Townsend rallied him on its size, he asked :

" Do you want to earn that check? "

" I'm your man! "

" Make me a young man again! "

As to the eccentric way in which he pro-
tested at what he deemed extortion in the
suburban hotel, there is another side to that
story, which the papers did not get hold of.
While he refused to use the hotel's convey-

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL 151

ance again, he established a friendship with
the driver and engaged him to take him on
short drives in the evening on his own account.
The fare would be twenty-five or fifty cents,
according to the time out; but Isaiah Wil-
liamson invariably gave the driver a dollar,
on the first occasion explaining his act in such
words as these :

" You have earned what you charged me,
and I have no right to dictate to you what you
shall do with your earnings. But what I give
you over your earnings I have earned, and
have a right to speak about. I don't want you
to waste it, but take it home to your wife and
put it to good use."

The driver has said that this lesson in thrift
and saving taught him by the eccentric hotel
guest proved of great help to him in later
years. And it is fair to presume that this was
only one of many similar instances of personal
influence which never came to light. How
many lives he stimulated in his quiet way we
have no means of knowing.

Speaking of his private carriage, it is true
that in the latter part of his life, until he be-
came too feeble, he was a confirmed pedes-

152 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

trian. He was fond of walking. Occasionally
he took a cab or a carriage for some special
reason, though generally he used the street
cars if going some distance. But as his
activities were chiefly confined within a few
blocks of his office, such as daily visits to the
Stock Exchange and the trust company, he
preferred walking as a matter of convenience
as well as of health. He was simply doing
what he liked to do, entirely aside from any
question of economy. That was his old-
fashioned way, and it was one reason of his
lengthened vigor and activity.

An editorial in the Public Ledger of
April 1 2th, after the inventory of the Wil-
liamson estate had been filed, ridiculed the
suggestion of miserliness : " The living man,
if he is inclined to be ' miserly,' does not give
away money in millions, in thousands, in hun-
dreds, or even in tens. The ' miser ' hoards
money and keeps it; and he hoards it for the
sole purpose of keeping it as long as he lives
— just as long as he can. He never gives away
any of it for charitable purposes or any other.
What a monstrous misapplication of terms it
therefore is to couple such words as ' close-

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL

153

fisted,' ' mean,' or ' miserly ' with the name of
Isaiah Williamson, who distributed, while he
was yet alive and might have had other uses
for the money, four millions in charitable
gifts for almost every form of benefaction
that would relieve the suffering, that would
help the needy, that would shelter the house-
less and homeless, that would succor and sup-
port the helpless, that would stimulate talent
by education, that would encourage the
worthy, that would reward merit, that would
build up industry, that would enlighten and
uplift the rising generation of working 1 "

These incidents have been dwelt upon to
bring Isaiah Williamson's personality more
vividly to mind, and to show his large-heart-
edness. To the last there was a certain boyish-
ness in the standing order to George, his
attendant and coachman, to buy every Satur-
day a supply of candy and apples, the candy
for his master's own use, and the apples for
the horse. And the story goes that certain
horses on the street learned to look for his
coming, to pat their noses and feed them bits
of broken apple.

He used to say that no man could be a

154 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

good Christian who was not kind to animals,
for " Christianity teaches love and kindness
to man and beast."

His thoughtfulness also for the men about
him was well known and characteristic, show-
ing many kindnesses to such helpers as his
coachman, and the janitor of the building in
which he had his office so long. This office
was in the store of Samuel W. Roop, commis-
sion merchant, afterward the firm of Roop
& Washington, and later Billings, Roop &
Washington. From 1850 to 1881 Mr. Wil-
liamson was a special partner, or had money
invested in this firm, under its different names.
One of the men who entered Roop's store in
1853, as a young clerk, and met Williamson
intimately for about thirty years thereafter,
says that in all those years " he never saw such
an even and sweet-tempered gentleman" ; and
he gives a bit of personal experience that is
illuminating. It seems that along about 1877,
Williamson noticed that this man appeared
very despondent, and upon inquiry learned
that he was worried over certain losses in the
business, in which he was at this time one of
the partners. Williamson said to him:

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL 155

" Brooding over losses is not the way to
make money. It unfits you for future busi-
ness. You must not look back over the gloomy
past." Going to his safe, Williamson brought
out a bundle of papers, saying: " That bundle
represents hundreds of thousands of dollars
which I have lost — much of it through mis-
placed confidence in friends. The worst of
it was, I not only lost the money but in many
cases the friendship, and yet I never in my life
sued a man for a debt. And so, of late years,
I have resolved never to loan a man money
without taking security; then I am sure not
to lose both my money and the man's friend-
ship. But I am going to break this rule with
you, my friend. Tell me how much money
you need to tide you over, and you shall have
it."

All this shows that the way in which the
Philadelphia Record pictured Mr. William-
son the year before he died is the more accu-
rate delineation. Its sketch closes in this way :
" As a capitalist he has been identified with a
large number of commercial, financial and
railroad enterprises. In all he has been a
director. That he has been earnestly solicited

156 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

to accept the presidency of many, that his
remarkable executive ability, his singular
magnetic influence, and his unswerving integ-
rity have been appreciated, everybody knows;
but his refusal as a rule to take the first
place is interesting because it is the key
to the man's nature. That nature may be read
in a face which retains in a surpassing degree
its original sweetness and purity of expression.
The marks with which the battle of business
life scars most faces, can be traced in his only
in the ' busy wrinkles,' not ' round ' but at the
corners of ' the eyes.' Intelligence of a high
order, with blended firmness and gentleness,
are to be read in Mr. Williamson's features,
and in his expression the simplicity and
modesty which have ever made distasteful to
him all display, whether of the wealth he has
amassed or the millions he has already be-
stowed in charity."

There are not many ten talent men to be
found in one's lifetime, here and there one of
two talents and the majority of men possess
but one talent or even a half talent, much out
of repair from non-use. The story of Isaiah

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL 157

Williamson's life is the word of an honest
man, speaking modestly and kindly to us, say-
ing, " Here is what I did with my one talent.
I found myself with few tools but I made all
the use of them possible for nearly a century.
My first books were the fields and forests and
my first and best teachers were the Quaker
mother and father, whose lessons of principle
and practice were the sheet anchors of my life.
They knew what a shy boy needed and they
gave it to me, not so much in words as in
deeds; it was their gentleness, patience and
religion, of which they never spoke, that I
absorbed in our home more than anything in
the Fallsington Meeting House or St. Peter's
Church, at Third and Pine Streets. From
them I learned not to be idle, not to hurry and
how to work and to save. They taught me
that the way to have anything to spend or give
away was to first put it into storage and never
to take out as much as I put in.

" From a godly father and mother, I
learned that looking silently and inwardly at
myself, I would find a light from heaven and
that meditation led to prayer and guidance.

158 LIFE OF ISAIAH V. WILLIAMSON

" I found that obedience to the truth given
to me answered my desire to be shown the
path for my life.

" So did my mother's and father's hands
rest upon my head all my long life. My call-
ing was only to do common things, which I
tried to do humbly, but in an uncommon way.
My work was to me as sacred as it would
have been had I been called to teach or work
upon canvas or stone.

" When I fully understood the talent I
possessed, I regarded it as a crowning of
power, not for self, and I consecrated it to
Him who gave it to me to uplift the man and
boy next to me as far as I could reach.

" In my business life, I never used my
sickle to cut down a fellow man. I never lent
a hand to help scuttle another's ship.

" I never made haste to be rich.

" I nursed the money-making instinct as
God's gift and rooted myself where it grew as
the one thing given to me to study and work
with, but I lived in another room without
idols of any kind.

" To me, great riches meant more hos-

LITTLE MAN OF LARGE SOUL 159

pitals, homes for aged and incurables, more
schools and colleges, institutions for industrial
education."

So speaks the little man of large soul out of
the solitariness of his life ; but for every man
good and true, young or old, struggling to do
his best work, there is an open door between
earth and heaven.

A well-known Englishman, maker of tiles
and pottery, who had risen from poverty to
wealth, built for himself a magnificent palace
in the midst of a great park of forest trees and
botanical gardens. His fences were made
with open gates that his many work-people
might go in and out and enjoy the noble house
and its grounds, fountains, pavilions and gal-
leries, and find pleasure and education in its
beauties.

Mr. Williamson has built nobly and none
need go away without a piece of wholesome
bread.

THE END

APPENDIX A

In the original project of his biography
Mr. Wanamaker intended to include volu-
minous extracts from the diaries and family
correspondence of Isaiah Williamson. But
in the end he decided to include as an appen-
dix only a few letters, written between 1876
and 1879. These, he felt, would illustrate the
human side of Isaiah Williamson at a time
when the writer of the letters was growing old
and had amassed great wealth.

Philada., Feby. I2th, 1876.

Dear Brother: —

I have been thinking that during the winter is per-
haps the best time to buy a Horse, and if you think " old
Black " will not be able to do duty the coming Summer,
I wish to propose to you that if you will buy a good,
quiet, safe and suitable Horse for such old fellows as
you and I to ride behind, at a price not exceeding $200,
that I will pay for him. I at first thought I would say
"buy a Horse and I will pay for him," but then it
occurred to me that you might go and buy a $20,000
Horse that would trot a mile in two minutes or less,
which neither of us would feel at home in riding after;
in truth such an one might take us a great way from home
contrary to our wishes. Then the question arises, if you
get another Horse what will be done with " old Black."
160

APPENDIX A

161

You would not like to sell him for fear he might get into
possession of some Huckster of Fish or other things, who
would not appreciate him as we do, and starve and abuse
him ; and I do not suppose you would like to kill him ; so
the question to me is difficult of solution.

I heard from brother John's widow a few days since
who, in acknowledging receipt of check sent her, stated
they were all well.

The weather here today is delightful and makes us
think of the near approach of Spring. When I next visit
" Clover Hill " I expect it will be by the new R. R., —
as they expect to commence running during April, the
" Frog and Bridge War " to the contrary notwithstand-
ing. Give my love to Anna Mary and Emily, and tell
Anna Mary I should like to have a letter from her.
Your affectionate Brother

I. V. Williamson.

(The " Frog and Bridge War " mentioned in this letter, is
a reference to the effort which the Pennsylvania Railroad was
making to prevent the new Bound Brook line from running
between Philadelphia and New York.)

Philadelphia, Oct. nth, 1876.

Dear Brother: —

Please meet Clinton and myself at Langhorne Station
on Saturday next (14th inst.) at 4 O'clock P. M., as we
expect to be there by that time.

I was at the " Centennial Exhibition " this morning,
and " finished it up " in precisely 2 hours and 35 minutes.
Talk about spending 3 or 4 weeks on it is all humbug;
there is nothing like going at it in earnest and doing it up
at once. Yours affectionately,

I. V. Williamson.

1 62

APPENDIX A

Philada., Feby. 24, 1877.

My dear Anna Mary: —

For a long time past I have been counting the months,
weeks, and even the days, until the weather will probably
be pleasant enough for me to visit " Clover Hill." I
long to see Nature in her New Spring Bonnet and Dress.
Although she makes no change in Colors and Styles from
year to year, with Bustles, Chignons, etc., as do our Fash-
ionable Chestnut St. Belles, still her style is always neat,
in good taste, and beautiful. I think she must belong to
" Friends Meeting."

I never could understand why so many people sacri-
fice time, talent and money to obtain Copies of Nature,
when the originals which ought to be, and are, so much
more beautiful, are open and free to all without money
and without price. What I refer to more particularly
is that numbers of persons will travel all over Europe
visiting the different Galleries for the purpose in a great
measure of seeing the most celebrated Pictures, many of
which are Landscapes and Marine Views, while in
numerous cases they pass by the originals (in seeking the
Copies) without even a passing notice. Suppose one of the
most celebrated Artists of Europe, or of the World, were
to paint a Landscape from a view taken on the line of Rail
Road between this City and Pittsburg where thousands of
persons pass daily, and place the Copy on exhibition in
this City, there would probably be ten persons to see the
Copy where there would be one that would see, or look
for, the original; and what makes it the more surprising
that this should be so, is that God is the Author and Man
the Artist.

I often think of the old adage, " Once a man and

APPENDIX A

163

twice a child" and how fully it has been verified in
my own case. When I first left home, and for many,
very many years thereafter, nothing gave me so much
real pleasure and enjoyment as to visit Home; but after
becoming immersed in business this Home feeling grad-
ually died out, and for a long time I felt very little
interest in the scenes of my boyhood. But now this Home
feeling is returning stronger and stronger every year, and
for the present and sometime past nothing gives me more
real pleasure than to visit Home, which I now call
" Clover Hill."

I have received several letters from you since I last
wrote, and I assure you they have given me a great deal
of pleasure; the first letter opened when I receive my mail
is the one with the " Oxford Valley P.O." stamp, should
there fortunately be one such.

Write whenever you have time, and do not wait for
me, as my time is so fully occupied that I have very little
time for anything but business. I would like to receive
a letter from you every week.

Yours affectionately,

I. V. Williamson.

Philada., Mch. 16, 1877.

My Dear Anna Mary: —

What's in a name ? They say " A Rose by any other
name would smell as sweet." I was forcibly reminded
of this a few days since when called upon to sign a peti-
tion to the North Penna. R.R. authorities to establish a
Station at " Glen Lake." I was not in the office when the
party called ; he left the Paper, and when I signed it I
said to Clinton that I had never heard of a Lake in that

164

APPENDIX A

vicinity and thought it must be a " Mill Pond " ; which
sure enough the party when he returned for the Paper
said it was somebody's " Mill Pond." I suppose the Glen-
Lakeians intend to erect there a fine Hotel and make it a
fashionable watering place; and instead of going to
Atlantic City or Cape May during the Summer I can
visit Glen Lake every other week, to bathe in its pure
waters and amuse myself in Fishing for Bull Frogs, etc.,
and sailing on its placid waters. Of course they will
have Sail-Boats, Yachts, etc., for the accommodation of
visitors. How convenient it will be for me particularly,
and I feel grateful to its projectors.

I think the old Residents of the County would under-
stand the location better if the Glen Lakers had con-
nected the name of a former owner of the Mill-Dam
with their Lake — as " Lake-Carlisle," " Lake Sutton,"
" Lake-Satterthwaite," etc. ; then I for one would know
pretty near where to find them.

When it is generally known by residents of the City
that you have a " Glen Lake " in your vicinity, con-
venient of access by Rail Road, I should not be surprised
if there would be a great demand for building sites for
summer residences on the margin of Glen Lake; indeed
it may increase the value of Land for miles around. Tell
your Papa he ought to increase the price of " Clover
Hill " ten dollars per acre at least.

Your last Letter of the 26th ultimo was duly received,
for which I feel most grateful. Write soon again and
often, telling me all the news, particularly about the suc-
cess of the subscriptions to the new Reading Room,
Library, etc., etc.

My general health is very good, and I am looking
forward to the coming of warm and pleasant weather

APPENDIX A

with fond anticipation. It is now snowing here a little
— I suppose the commencement of the annual " St.
Patrick Day's storm."

Remember me to Emily ; tell " Old Black " I long
to see him; and believe me

Yours very affectionately,

I. V. Williamson.

Philada., Jany. 28, 1878.

My dear Anna Mary : —

Your most welcome Letters have all been received,
and I feel and confess that I have been very remis8
(unexcusably so) in not replying to them as a faithful
and prompt correspondent should have done; but you
know the ordinary excuse of business men for neglecting
such duties, and you must allow me to avail myself of
that, although I do not think that in many cases it is suffi-
cient. However if you really knew the great pleasure it
gives me to receive a Letter from " Clover Hill," I will
tell you what I think you would do; you would say to
yourself, " Well ! there is that old Bachelor uncle of mine
whose time is fully occupied with business matters, and
who / know fully appreciates my Letters. I don't think
I can do anything better than to afford him the pleasure of
receiving one every two weeks at least, even if he should
(for want of time) neglect to answer them." And then
to confirm the arrangement, I will imagine I hear one
foot fall heavily to the floor, accompanied with the expres-'
sion, " I'll do it." It is rather a one-sided bargain, but
under all the circumstances I hope and believe you will
come to the conclusion to carry it out to the Letter, or
Letters. As a general thing I have really been very busy

APPENDIX A

since I saw you last, and I find that Age is beginning to
claim its rights, as I discover that I cannot accomplish as
much in the same time as I could thirty years ago.

I think of you all every day almost {not excepting
"old Black") and imagine you all seated in the cosy little
Sitting Room around thestove (excepting " old Black")
discussing the news of the day and wondering if there
will be Ice enough this winter to fill the " Ice House." It
really begins to look a little dubious, although I believe
some Ice has been gathered here from the Ponds during
the last cold " snap."

My health thus far during the winter has been gen-
erally good; we have had as yet very little cold weather
and scarcely any Snow. I suppose in the Country you are
obliged to substitute mud for snow.

I visit Cousin Peter's about once a week; they are as
well as usual. Had I known two or three days before
Christmas that it would be as pleasant and mild as it
proved to be, I think I should have written your Papa to
meet me at Woodburn Station on that morning.

I enclose the result of Mr. Shaeffer's experience in
raising different kinds of Potatoes, thinking perhaps your
Papa may wish to avail himself of it before I see him. I
did not receive it until after my last visit to the Country.

Oh! how I long for the time when I can write your
Papa, " Please meet me at Woodburn on Saturday next,
etc., etc." I like Springtime in the Country, with its
Green Fields and Trees, and Singing Birds, and particu-
larly its necessary accompaniment, " Warm Weather."

I hope you will ratify and confirm my proposed
arrangement by writing soon and very often to your most
affectionate Old Uncle.

APPENDIX A

167

Remember me most kindly to Emily, and I hope it
will not be very long before we all meet again at " Clover
Hill " and have a drink together of " Lemonade with
Ice " — Adieu.

I. V. Williamson.

(Y 2 past 7 P.M. at office)
Philada., Feby. 27, 1879.

My dear Anna Mary: —

Your most welcome letter of 19th Inst., as well as
many others of previous dates, have all been reed., and
you may be assured have all been highly appreciated. My
Conscience smites me when I receive your Letters and
think that you are doing all the correspondence for my
exclusive benefit, without any return whatever on my
part ; and can only offer the old and stale excuse, which I
fear you are heartily tired of hearing, that I am and have
been very busy since I last saw you. I have quite as much
or more to do than heretofore, but the great trouble now
is that it takes me much longer to do the same amount of
business than it required a few years ago; my sight is
failing and am getting old; the 4th Feby. was my 76th
Birthday. However, my general health is good and has
been during the winter; scarcely a day but I have been
able to attend to business; for all which I feel extremely
thankful. You have kept me posted in regard to the Library
and I agree with you fully in regard to the name of the
" Hall," which had I been consulted would have objected
to decidedly. I think of you all daily and am count-
ing the months, weeks, and even the days, when I shall
have the pleasure of seeing you. I have thought a great
deal about your suggested visit to " Florida " to spend a

i68

APPENDIX A

winter. Wouldn't it be nice, or even as the Boys say,
" Bully," for us seven (I mean you and your Papa, Emily,
myself, Old Black, Minnie and Grant) 1 to go down there
and take a little Cottage to spend the winter. If I had
the leisure I think it would be well worth taking into
serious consideration. Having a Cottage or even a Log
House to ourselves we should be perfectly independent,
particularly so as we should have our own Horse, Cat and
Dog. In a little over two months now, if nothing occurs
to prevent, you will be received every two weeks Letters
saying, " Please meet me at Woodburn Station on Satur-
day P.M.," signed I. V. Williamson.

P.S. Write often and keep me informed of all that
is transpiring, as I feel a great interest in all that is going
on in "old Bucks."

Yours affectionately,

I. V. W.

1 " Minnie " was the cat, and " Grant " the dog.

APPENDIX B

Sources from which Mr. Wanamaker
drew the data for the life of his old friend
were many and varied. Aside from his visits
to Bucks County, his general reading on the
subject of Philadelphia and its mercantile life
in the decades immediately preceding his own
career, and his personal contact with Isaiah
Williamson, the biographer's sources were
as follows :

1. Diaries and letters of Isaiah V. Williamson.

2. Notes by Mr. Helmbold, Mr. Williamson's secretary,

concerning his employer's habits and philanthropies.

3. Mr. Wanamaker's own autograph notes of conversa-

tions with Alfred Helmbold, and Frank William-
son, " regarding Isaiah V. Williamson."

4. Ms. biographical data of Williamson family, includ-

ing many letters, and the will of William William-
son, filed January 22, 1721.

5. Account book of Isaiah V. Williamson.

6. Collection of mementoes of Isaiah V. Williamson.

7. One bound scrap book containing numerous news-

paper clippings about Isaiah V. Williamson, and
packages of news articles of various dates.

8. Collection of biographical data prepared by the

Evening Telegraph staff at the time of Mr.
Williamson's death in 1889.

169

170

APPENDIX B

9. Mass of data concerning the will of Isaiah V.
Williamson.

10. Correspondence concerning the -foundation and early

history of the Williamson School, in which Mr.
Wanamaker played an active role.

1 1. Collection of pamphlets, catalogues, and other printed

matter concerning the Williamson School from its
foundation to the date the biography was written.